pointed to carry the resolutions adopted into effect. On the third of June ensuing, Mr. Savage moved that the girls be permitted to remain in the English Grammar Schools throughout the year." This motion being adopted, and measures taken for carrying into effect the views thus sanctioned, the project of the High School for Girls was abandoned, and the scale of instruction in the Common Schools in the city was gradually elevated and enlarged.

This result, and distinctness with which the Mayor had made known his opinion, concerning the inexpediency of establishing such a High School for Girls at the expense of the city, in opposition to the views and interests of a body of citizens of great activity, and of on inconsiderable influence, gave origin to party assaults upon the motives and conduct of that officer, which he noticed in his final address to the Board of Aldermen, on taking leave of the office, in January, 1829. The soundness of these views, and their coincidence with the permanent interests of the city, seem to be sanctioned by the fact, that twenty-three years (1851) have elapsed, and no effectual attempt, during that period, has been made for its revival, in the School Committee, or in either branch of the City Council.

The following are the passages in his address on taking leave of the office of Mayor, in January, 1829, to which Mr. Quincy refers in his History:

But the High School for Girls has been suspended. As, on this topic, I have reason to think very gross misrepresentations and falsehoods have been circulated in every form of the tongue and the press, I shall speak plainly. It being in fact a subject on which my opinion has at no time been concealed.

This school was adopted declaredly as "an experiment." It was placed under the immediate care of its known authors. It may be truly said that its impracticability was proved before it went into operation. The pressure for admission at the first examination of candidates, the discontent of the parents of those rejected, the certainty of far greater pressure and discontent which must occur in future years, satisfied every reflecting mind that, however desirable the scheme of giving a high classical education, equal about to a college education, to all the girls of a city, whose parents would wish them to be thus educated at the expense of the city, was just as impracticable as to give such an one to all the boys of it at the city's expense. Indeed, more so, because girls, not being drawn away from the college by preparation for a profession or trade, would have nothing except their marriage to prevent their parents from availing of it. No funds of any city could endure the expense.

The next project was so to model the school as that, although professedly established for the benefit of all, it might be kept and maintained at the expense of the city for the benefit of the few. The School Committee were divided equally on the resulting questions. The subject was finally postponed by the casting vote of the Chairman. As all agreed, that new and great appropriations were necessary, if the school was to be maintained according to its original conception, the Chairman was directed to make a report on the whole subject to the City Council. The report indicated that, in such case, appropriations were indispensably necessary, but did not recommend them, because a majority of the Committee were not favorable to the project. That report was printed and circulated throughout the city. A year has elapsed, and not an individual in either branch of the City Council has brought forward the question of its revival by moving the necessary appropriation.

No shield has ever before been protruded by the individual principally assailed as a defense against the calumnies which have been circulated on this subject. It has now been alluded to, more for the sake of other honorable men, who have, for a like cause, been assailed by evil tongues and evil pens, than for his own.

In all this there is nothing uncommon or unprecedented. The public officer who from a sense of public duty, dares to cross strong interests in their way to gratification at the public expense, always has had, and ever will have, meted to him the same measure. The beaten course is, first, to slander, in order to intimidate; and if that fails, then to slander, in order to sacrifice. He who loves his office better than his duty will yield and be flattered as long as he is a tool. He who loves his duty better than his office will stand erect and take his fate.

All schools requiring high qualifications as the condition of admission, are essentially schools for the benefit, comparatively, of a very few. The higher the qualification, the greater the exclusion. Those whose fortunes permit them to avail themselves of private instruction for their children, during their early years,-men highly educated themselves, who have leisure and ability to attend to the education of their own children, and thus raise them at the prescribed age to the required qualification,-will chiefly enjoy the privilege. To the rest of the community, consisting of parents not possessing these advantages, admission to them is a lottery, in which there is a hundred blanks to a prize. The scheme to reduce the school to an attendance of one year, seems to be a needless multiplication of schools and of expense; as it is plainly far better that a year should be added to the continuance in the common schools, and their course of instruction proportionably elevated.

The great interest of society is identified with her common schools. These belong to the mass of the people. Let the people take care, lest the funds which ought to be devoted exclusively to the improvement and elevation of these common schools, thus essentially theirs, be diverted to schools of high qualification. Under whatever pretense established, their necessary tendency is to draw away, not only funds, but also interest and attention from the common schools. The sound principle upon this subject seems to be, that the standard of public education should be raised to the greatest desirable and practicable height; but that it should be effected by raising the standard of the common schools.

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For a period of twenty-three years, as was stated by Mr. Quincy, in the above extract from his History, no effectual attempt was made in the School Committee, or in either branch of the City Council, to revive the High School for Girls. But in the report of the committee to make the annual examination in May, 1847, (drawn up by Joseph M. Wightman,) it is suggested that "precisely the same studies are taught to both boys and girls, without regard to the difference in their constitution and physical strength, or the adaptation of the studies to their peculiar positions in life;" and then lays down the principle that "a school for boys should comprehend the studies which will be most useful to them as men." Among the deviations in practice from this principle, the report complains that the studies of the girls in the public school are "too extensive and too difficult." Many portions of arithmetic and the whole of algebra, are as unnecessary to female education in our Grammar Schools, as would be the science of engineering, or a course of law studies." If a higher class of studies is required for a portion of the girls, to qualify them for teachers, or other peculiar duties, the committee are of opinion that a High School, similar in rank to that for boys, but adapted to female education, should be established, to which might be transferred some of the studies now pursued in the Grammar Schools." The report suggests as an aid to check the growing evils "of extravagant family expenses, and entire disregard of the dictates of prudence," that girls "must be taught habits of industry and economy, as wanted to the faithful performance of the higher duties of life. As one of the means to accomplish this, let plain sewing be taught and practiced in all of the classes in the school-let prizes be awarded for it-let an important and high rank

be given to it in our estimation, and in a short time, the ambition of the pupils will be, to excel in this most legitimate of female avocations. Its practice will relieve the tediousness of mental exercise in school, and its effects will be to render home the abode of comfort and happiness, from the industry, order and neatness which will pervade it."

On the 2nd of February, 1848, S. H. Jenks, G. B. Emerson and R. Soule, Jr., were appointed a Special Committee "to consider the expediency of establishing a High School for Girls, with details and estimates in relation thereto." This committee reported, on the 3d of May, in favor of establishing two such schools, and of providing for the accommodation of the same—one in the large upper hall of the Quincy Grammar School, and the other in a similar hall of the Hancock School-each school to receive 250 pupils, and the annual expense for both not to exceed $5,000. The committee maintain that the law of the state requiring every town containing five hundred families to maintain, in addition to its ordinary district schools, a town school of a higher grade "for the benefit of all the inhabitants," was not complied with in Boston, inasmuch as the Latin and English High Schools were not open for girls, and that this exclusion, without other public opportunities for similar instruction, was unequal and impolitic. Without such opportunities women could not become the teachers of the coming generation, and "the fit civilizers of mankind." They can see no reason why the faculties of females should be deprived of the intellectual food provided for those of males; and on the other hand, they assert that the cultivation of these faculties will elevate the female character, and through that elevation society will unspeakably be benefited. On the 24th of May, the same committee reported in favor of appropriating $2,491 for seating and equipping generally the halls above specified for two schools, and $6,500 for two principal preceptors of the same qualification prescribed for the Latin and English High Schools, and six female assistants. The course of study recommended, besides a review of the branches pursued in the Grammar Schools, embraced "algebra, natural history, natural and intellectual philosophy, astronomy, botany, chemistry, moral science, and the Latin, Greek, and French languages." The preceptor of each school was required "to give such pupils as may desire to enter a class for the purpose, suitable lectures on the art of imparting instruction to children, with such practical directions and exemplifications, as may tend to prepare and qualify said pupils to become teachers of youth." These recommendations of the sub-committee were adopted by the whole board, but the City Government failed to make the necessary appropriations.

On the 12th of January, 1849, a committee consisting of Messrs.

Jenks, Spence and Neale, were appointed to investigate the subject still further; this committee reported in favor of the immediate establishment of two seminaries for the higher instruction of girls, "as demanded by the judgment of the community, the dictates of justice and the positive injunctions of law." They accordingly ask the appropriation of $3,000 to fit up the halls before recommended, and of $7,000 for the current expenses of the institutions. No action was had on these recommendations by the City Authorities.

In his first annual report to the School Committee, submitted Dec. 30th, 1851, the Superintendent of Public Schools, (Nathan Bishop,) recommended "the establishment of a Normal School, as a part of the Boston system of Public Instruction." "It is due to the inhabitants of this city to establish an institution in which such of their daughters as have completed with distinguished success the course of studies in the Grammar Schools, may, if they are desirous of teaching, qualify themselves in the best manner for this important employment." This recommendation was referred to a Special Committee, (composed of Messrs. Eaton, Tracy, Simonds, Simpson and Hahn,) which reported in June, 1852, in favor of establishing "a school for the single object of preparing teachers for our public schools," and "that it should be resorted to by those only who may desire to qualify themselves for teaching." "It should provide for its pupils such a course of study as would demand for its completion the earnest and devoted application of at least two years; one which would insure not only a thorough acquaintance with all the elementary, therefore, for the most essential, branches in which they may be called upon to give instruction, but which should give such a knowledge of the physical laws of health, of which there is now among many teachers such lamentable ignorance, as would enable them to take proper care of the pupils under their charge; such information in regard to the true method of calling into healthful exercise the various faculties of the mind, as would not allow one to be comparatively dormant, and urge another into over activity, and thus give a one-sided development to the mind; such a preparation for unfolding and invigorating the moral character of their pupils, as should best fit them for successfully performing the duties growing out of the various relations of life; and such views of the true character of their future vocation-of its dignity, of its power to influence deeply, and it may be ineffaceably for good or for evil, and hence of its high responsibility, as while exciting a modest distrust of their own qualifications, should at the same time arouse in them an earnest and generous determination to perform their duties with strict fidelity, and to devote to their work the whole strength of their minds and hearts."

The report was accepted by the School Committee, and on the 8th of July, 1852, the City Government authorized the establishment of a Normal School for female teachers, as a part of the system of Public Instruction.

In September, a sub-committee on the Normal School, composed of Russell, Derby and Simpson, were directed to organize the school for two hundred pupils, who were to be admitted at the age of sixteen years, after being found qualified in the studies of the Grammar Schools. The course of study and instruction prescribed, embraced a thorough review of the studies of the Grammar School, and collateral branches important to explain and illustrate the same, with special reference to instruction in the art of teaching those studies. After having satisfactorily mastered the required studies, pupils were permitted to proceed to the study of English literature, intellectual and moral philosophy, the French language, the natural sciences, and of some departments of mathematics. Music, and drawing, and lectures on physiology and hygiene, were to form a part of the regular course. The school thus organized went into operation in the fall of 1852, under the principalship of Loring Lathrop, and three assistants, and a model school under the charge of Miss Lucy D. Osborn.

But the establishment of the Normal School for female teachers did not satisfy the friends of the High Schools for Girls, who in 1853 presented a petition numerously signed, asking for such a school. This petition was referred to a committee to which J. Thomas Stevenson was chairman, who prepared a report, in which it was claimed that the city already provided in the Grammar Schools for Girls, a course of instruction as advanced as that given in schools denominated "high" in other cities of the State, and in the Normal School, "a thorough review of the studies of the Grammar School, with the addition of such collateral branches as are important for the explanation and illustration of those studies." The report concludes by discouraging any present extension of the means of instruction for girls. But in 1854, the School Committee converted the Normal School into a High School for Girls, by opening it to all who possessed the required qualifications for admission without restriction as to any intention or wish to engage in teaching. It was provided at the same time, that a Normal Class should be formed for the latter. The report of the School Committee for 1861, contains the following notice of the Girls' High and Normal School, after speaking of the Latin and English High School for boys.

While our city was thus liberally providing for the education of her sons, carrying them on from the Primary, through the Grammar Schools, to the Latin or the English High School, her daughters, after learning all that was taught in the Grammar Schools, were compelled to resort to private schools for instruction in the