Every boy or girl of suitable physical health is supposed to own a sled. Our fine hills afford splendid facilities for coasting, which are fully utilized.

At least once a week during the school year some evening entertainment is provided for the children, consisting of concerts, readings, school exhibitions, tableaux, minstrel shows, a masquerade ball, dramatie performances and stereopticon exhibitions. These entertainments are gotten up by the officers and employees, usually assisted by some of the children. The school now owns a fine stereopticon apparatus, and nearly a thousand carefully selected lantern slides. These magic-lantern pictures vividly illustrate the principal physical features of the world and the many phases of human life and its varied interests. The pictures are greatly enjoyed by the children, and give them much real knowledge of the great world outside.

The most effectual means of discipline or correction for misdemeanor or waywardness is to send a child early to bed while his fellows are enjoying one of the entertainments.

Among our resources in the way of recreation is the "Zoo," our collection of domestic animals and other pets, including goats, sheep, a calf, a pig, rabbits, guinea pigs, white mice, squirrels, hens, chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, pigeons, turtles, frogs and even snakes. This collection is a never-failing source of pleasure and instruction for the children. It really forms a very important part of our school object collection, as the different animals are actually taken into the schoolrooms as living texts for encouraging attention and observation, the exercise of the special senses, and developing the power of speech.

The regular holidays are observed in the most approved and thorough manner. The 4th of July is celebrated with all the noise and pomp of the most ambitious village. In the morning there is a parade of antiques and horribles, followed by a formal and dignified procession made up of four military companies, the baseball nines and the firemen, headed by the drum corps, all in uniform, who make a tour of the different buildings, where the childrer. enthusiastically and vociferously greet them with the noise of tin horns, torpedoes and firecrackers. Then all the children, officers and teachers fall in the rear of the procession and march to the grove, where a picnic dinner is served, consisting of sandwiches, cake, ice cream, fruit and lemonade, all in great abundance. In the afternoon the entire family adjourns to the campus to witness a long programme of athletic sports. This includes a baseball match, tugof-war contest, running, hurdle and other races, etc.; in fact, the conventional New England 4th of July celebration. The eager contestants in the games and races are the boys and even some of the girls, who have been in training for a long time beforehand. The winners are rewarded with glittering badges, which are carefully preserved and proudly worn. for a long time afterwards. In the evening a good display of fireworks ends the festivities of the day.

At Christmas the hall is gaily decorated with evergreens and bunting, and every child receives several presents from the Christmas tree.

Each Sunday services are held in the assembly hall and in the west building, consisting of singing, Bible stories and simple illustrations and practical applications of the fundamental principles of morality and religion. Nearly every child attends these services, and, in addition to the moral instruction, receives valuable lessons in decorum and behavior.

LAWS RELATING TO THE MASSACHUSETTS SCHOOL FOR THE FEEBLE-MINDED.

ACTS OF 1850, CHAPTER 150.

AN ACT TO INCORPORATE THE MASSACHUSETTS SCHOOL FOR IDIOTIC AND FEEBLE-MINDED YOUTH.

Be it enacted, etc., as follows:

SECTION 1. S. G. Howe, Samuel May, Stephen Fairbanks, their associates and successors, are hereby made a corporation, by the name of the Massachusetts School for Idiotic and Feeble-minded Youth, for the purpose of training and teaching such persons, with all the powers and privileges and subject to all the duties, restrictions and liabilities set forth in the thirty-eighth and forty-fourth chapters of the Revised Statutes.

SECTION 2. Said corporation may hold, for the purpose aforesaid, real estate not exceeding in value one hundred thousand dollars and personal estate the income of which shall not exceed ten thousand dollars. [Approved April 4, 1850.

REVISED LAWS, CHAPTER 87, SECTIONS 113-123.

SECTION 113. There shall be six trustees, on the part of the commonwealth, of the Massachusetts school for the feeble-minded, two of whom shall be annually appointed by the governor, with the advice and consent of the council, for a term of three years.

SECTION 114. The annual appropriation for the support of said school shall be made upon condition that the board of trustees shall be composed of twelve persons, six of whom shall be appointed by the governor, with the advice and consent of the council; that the governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of the commonwealth, president of the senate, speaker of the house and the two chaplains of the general court shall constitute a board of visitors to visit and inspect the institution as often as they see fit, to examine the by-laws and regulations enacted by the corporation, and generally to see that the object of the institution is carried into effect; and that the members of the general court for the time being shall be, ex officiis, visitors of the institution, and have the privilege, during the sessions, of inspecting it.

SECTION 115. The Massachusetts school for the feeble-minded shall maintain a school department for the instruction and education of feeble-minded persons who are within the school age or who in the judgment of the trustees thereof are capable of being benefited by school instruction, and a custodial department for the care and custody of feeble-minded persons beyond the school age or not capable of being benefited by school instruction.

SECTION 116. Persons received by said corporation shall from time to time be classified in said departments as the trustees shall see fit, and the trustees may receive and discharge pupils at their discretion and may at any time discharge any pupil or other inmate and cause him to be removed to his home or to the place of his settlement or to the custody of the state board of insanity. They may also allow any inmate to be absent on a visit for not more than three months, and the liability of any person or place to said corporation for the support of such inmate shall not be suspended by reason of such absence, unless, during such period, such inmate becomes a charge to the commonwealth elsewhere.

SECTION 117. Said corporation shall gratuitously receive, maintain and educate in the school department such indigent feeble-minded persons from this commonwealth as shall be designated by the governor upon the recommendation of the secretary of the board of education. Special pupils may be received from any other state or province at a charge of not less than three hundred dollars a year. The trustees may also at their discretion receive, maintain and educate in the school department other feeble-minded persons, gratuitously or upon such terms as they may determine.

SECTION 118. If, upon application in writing, a judge of probate finds that a person is a proper subject for the Massachusetts school for the feeble-minded, he may commit him thereto by an order of commitment directed to the trustees thereof, accompanied by the certificate of a physician, who is a graduate of a legally organized medical college and who has practised three years in this commonwealth, that such person is a proper subject for said institution. The fee of the judge for hearing and determining the application shall be three dollars, and if he is required to go from his office or place of business to attend such hearing, an additional fee of one dollar and all necessary expenses of travel, which shall be paid upon the certificate of the judge by the county in which such application was heard.

SECTION 119. A person who intends to apply for the commitment of a feeble-minded person under the provisions of the preceding section shall first give notice in writing to the overseers of the poor of the city or town in which such feeble-minded person resides, of such intention; but if such feeble-minded person resides in Boston, such notice shall be given to the institutions registrar or to the chairman of the insane hospital trustees instead of the overseers of the poor. Satisfactory evi

dence that such notice has been given shall be produced to the judge and shall accompany the order of commitment.

SECTION 120. The charges for the support of each inmate in the custodial department of said school shall be three dollars and twenty-five cents a week, and shall be paid quarterly. Such charges for those not having known settlements in the commonwealth shall, after approval by the state board of insanity, be paid by the commonwealth, and may afterward be recovered by the treasurer and receiver general of such inmates, if of sufficient ability, or of any person or kindred bound by law to maintain them, or of the place of their settlement, if subsequently ascertained; for those having known settlements in this commonwealth, either by the persons bound to pay or by the place in which such inmates had their settlement, unless security to the satisfaction of the trustees is given for such support. If any person or place refuses or neglects to pay such charges, or such amounts as may be charged and due to the removal of an inmate whom the trustees are authorized by law to remove, the treasurer may recover the same to the use of the school as provided in section seventy-nine.

SECTION 121. A city or town which pays the charges and expenses for the support or removal of a feeble-minded person admitted to said school shall have like rights and remedies to recover the amount thereof with interest and costs from the place of his settlement, or from such person if of sufficient ability, or from any person bound by law to maintain him, as if such charges and expenses had been incurred in the ordinary support of such feeble-minded person.

SECTION 122. The trustees of said school shall annually prepare and send to the state board of insanity a written or printed report of its proceedings, income and expenditures, properly classified, for the year ending on the thirtieth day of September, stating the amount appropriated by the commonwealth, the amount expended under said appropriation, the whole number and the average number of inmates, the number and salaries of officers and employees, and such other information as the board may require, and shall also once in three months make a report to said board of the number of inmates received and discharged, respectively, during the preceding three months, the whole number then in the institution and the number of beneficiaries supported by the commonwealth, and such other information as the board may require.

SECTION 123. The state board of insanity may from time to time transfer from the state hospital, state farm, or any of the state insane hospitals, to the Massachusetts school for the feeble-minded any inmate whose condition would be benefited by such transfer, upon the certificate of a physician that he is a proper subject for said institution.