LP 249 
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 Copy 1 
 
 ^tate of (ttonnprttrut 
 
 REPORT 
 
 OF THE 
 
 Special Educational Commission. 
 
 1909 
 
^tate of Connecticut 
 
 PUBLIC DOCUMENT— SPECIAL 
 
 REPORT 
 
 OF THE 
 
 Special Educational Commission. 
 
 COMMISSION APPOINTED BY 
 
 THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY 
 
 OF 1907. 
 
 S. J. RESOLUTION No. 287. 
 
 APPROVED JULY 31, 1907. 
 
 REPORT PRESENTED TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF 1909. 
 
 HARTFORD 
 
 Published by the State 
 1909 
 
t 
 
 
 (EDITION OF 1,000 ORDERED BY THe\ 
 GENERAL ASSEMBLY UNDER S. J. R., NO. 56. / 
 
 Press of R. S. Peck & Co. 
 Hartford, Conn. 
 
REPORT OF THE SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL COMMISSION. 
 
 REPORT 
 
 OF THE 
 
 SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL COMMISSION. 
 
 To the Honorable the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut: 
 
 At the last session of the General Assembly the Joint Committee 
 on Education was continued under an act directing them to investi- 
 gate the public school system of the State of Connecticut and to 
 make a report to the General Assembly of 1909, accompanied by 
 such recommendations as should seem proper. Immediately after 
 this action the Joint Committee met and appointed five of their 
 number, whose names are appended to this report, and commissioned 
 them to carry out the directions of the continuing act, and to make 
 the report and recommendations called for. It is in fulfilment of 
 this assigned duty that this paper is respectfully submitted to your 
 honorable body. 
 
 Your Commissioners have held public meetings in different parts 
 of the State. They have studied with care the school laws of this 
 State and of other states. They have carefully considered the reports 
 submitted to the State Board of Education by their agents, super- 
 intendents, and others during the past two years. They have visited 
 schools, have consulted with many persons interested in educational 
 matters, and have endeavored in various other ways to discharge 
 the duty .to which they were appointed. 
 
 We are impressed with the fact that the State of Connecticut, by 
 establishing laws for the compulsory education of its children, has 
 assumed a very grave responsibility. It is true that the school laws 
 prescribe first of all and most properly that "all parents and those 
 who have care of children shall bring them up in some lawful and 
 honest employment." It is to be regretted that the existence of this 
 law is probably unknown to the majority of parents, and it is further 
 to be regretted that the significance of such a law is but faintly 
 appreciated. Aside from this the State has assumed control of 
 the education of its children. Neither the parent nor the community 
 in which the parent resides can determine whether or not the children 
 
4 REPORT OF THE SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL COMMISSION. 
 
 shall go to school, can determine exclusively the studies which the 
 child shall undertake, can determine the minimum period of the 
 child's school life. The STATE, and not the town, and not the 
 parent, is the authority in these matters. 
 
 Furthermore, the State contributes every year an enormous fund 
 for the carrying out of the obligations entered into through the 
 establishment of the laws above alluded to. It seems to follow as 
 a logical and moral necessity that the State should see to it that 
 as a State it discharges its own reciprocal duty by the assertion of 
 its authority in this very grave matter, the obligation tacitly under- 
 taken when large sums of money are devoted to this purpose. When 
 a state requires the children to go to school it becomes obliged to 
 provide a suitable school for the children to attend. 
 
 In recognition of these obligations, the State has established a 
 Commission known as the State Board of Education, whose funda- 
 mental purpose is, as stated in Section 2 of the School Laws, to "have 
 general supervision and control of the educational interests of the 
 State." This Board has and exercises a general advisory super- 
 vision over the schools of the State, but the specific statutes of our 
 school laws are of such a nature that the control of the educational 
 interests of the State is by no means in the hands of this State 
 Board. Except in a few instances and with reference to particular 
 questions the control of the schools is in the hands of town or district 
 authorities. This is a condition which has been inherited from an 
 earlier time when the towns were isolated and when the conception 
 of public education was a thing quite different , from that which 
 prevails in enlightened commonwealths to-day. 
 
 Very grave injustice is being done to-day to a large proportion 
 of the children of the State through the inequalities of school oppor- 
 tunity resulting from this system of local management. Partly this 
 injustice is due to the different ability of different communities to 
 maintain suitable schools; partly it is due to indifference and in- 
 competence on the part of local authorities ; partly it is due to petty 
 and unworthy jealousies liable to exist between communities and in 
 communities. As a result of these and other causes we repeat that 
 a large proportion of the children of the State are not receiving 
 proper instruction. A large proportion of the fund devoted every 
 year by the State to the support of schools fails to achieve the 
 purpose for which it is appropriated. A considerable part of this 
 money is without doubt rather worse than wasted; for there are 
 schools in this State of which it may fairly be said that it would be 
 better for the children to work or play rather than to be compelled 
 to attend them. 
 
 Your Commission have been painfully impressed by the condition 
 of many of the school buildings in the smaller towns of the State. 
 
REPORT OF THE SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL COMMISSION. 5 
 
 They are old, unclean, offering no proper shelter, poorly heated, 
 unventilated, associated with out-buildings offensive to the senses 
 and sensibilities of child and adult alike ; buildings of a sort which 
 would not be tolerated for an instant in the case of a state prison 
 or a county jail. Yet in these hovels are gathered together five 
 or six hours a day the helpless little children for whose education 
 the State has assumed to care. Your Commissioners are anxious 
 not to exaggerate. Yet no one, we believe, could with comprehending 
 eyes look upon these places inside and out without a sense of State 
 shame and humiliation, without a hope, silent or expressed, that no 
 visitor from another commonwealth should see these things. 
 
 We find further that, aside from the buildings themselves, very 
 many of these schools are equipped but poorly or not at all with 
 the things necessary for the administration of a school in these days. 
 They are without reference books, without maps, and in many cases 
 the children are without text books. Indeed most of the tools 
 for the maintenance of a school are lacking. 
 
 We find that a considerable proportion of the teachers in the 
 Connecticut schools are thoroughly unfit for their positions, that 
 these teachers to whom we take exception are uneducated, without 
 experience or knowledge of the teaching profession, without ambition 
 or ability to improve. We find that, through improper methods of 
 appointment, and through the lack of any state control, appointments 
 to teaching positions are made carelessly and sometimes in a way 
 suggesting motives which ought to be deprecated. For example, 
 taking the teachers in something over fifty towns for which appropriate 
 statistics are available, we find that fifteen per cent, of them are 
 related by consanguinity or affinity to the person responsible for their 
 appointment, and that of the teachers comprising this fifteen per cent, 
 only two or three can be ranked as in any way efficient. 
 
 We find that the wages paid to a large proportion of our teachers 
 are distressingly small, so ridiculous when thought of in connection 
 with the tremendous responsibilities devolving upon the teacher of 
 a school as to be a separate and distinct occasion for shame. 
 
 Naturally we find also that in very many schools the children are 
 learning very little. And all this unfortunate situation exists at a 
 time when, because of the influx, specially into our rural districts, of 
 immigrant children hardly able to speak our language, born of parents 
 entirely unacquainted with our national character and uninfluenced 
 by national tradition, the need for careful training is most pressing. 
 (In 1900 the percentage of illiterates among the foreign white 
 population of Connecticut from 15 to 19 years of age was 13.3) 
 
 The criticisms which have thus far been indicated are applicable 
 to many of the smaller schools in some of the rural districts of our 
 State. The difficulties of the situation in such localities are great. 
 
6 REPORT OF THE SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL COMMISSION. 
 
 Through the prevalence of the district system or through the willing- 
 ness of town authorities to maintain more schools than are really 
 necessary or desirable, there are altogether too many schools in the 
 country towns. Your Commission believe that a school of four 
 or five or even of eight or ten pupils cannot in any case do good work. 
 It is run at an extraordinary pecuniary loss. The lack of anything 
 like school spirit reacts disastrously upon the children and upon the 
 teacher. There is no more depressing sight than that of a half 
 dozen children gathered in a disreputable school house, originally 
 meant for thirty or forty pupils, in charge of a teacher who is really 
 in the position of a private tutor without the helps and advantages 
 and opportunities that would attach to a real tutorship. 
 
 It is not too much to say that from three hundred to four hundred 
 schools now maintained in the State could be closed, the children 
 being sent to central schools, to the very great advantage of the 
 interests of education. In a town in Windham Countj% for example, 
 the aggregate attendance in four of the schools taken together is 
 less than seventeen. In io8 towns there are 343 schools in which 
 the average attendance for the year 1907-08 was less than twelve 
 pupils each. Very often a hardship results, even from the town 
 system of schools, when, for example, children are obliged to travel 
 or to be carried a long distance in order to attend a school in their 
 own town, whereas by simply stepping over an imaginary line they 
 could attend a school close at hand. There are several instances of 
 this sort to which specific reference may be made if desired. 
 
 It is not pleasant to be obliged to call attention to a situation such 
 as that indicated above. Your Commission might easily go into 
 particulars, might name town after town and district after district 
 in which the schools are almost or quite useless, and in which the 
 money devoted to their support produces no reasonable return. We 
 might present photographs of exteriors and interiors of school build- 
 ings which it would be humiliating for a citizen of Connecticut to 
 look upon. We have in our possession a photograph of a school 
 building so defaced that, the photograph could not lawfully be sent 
 through the post office and the exhibition of it would violate Sec. 
 1325 of the general statutes. But is it not sufficient for us to say 
 that in our opinion a large number of our schools call for immediate 
 and drastic action looking to their reform and improvement? We 
 feel sure that there are many towns and districts that will be thankful 
 not to be particularly designated in this report, and that there are 
 many teachers to whom we do a kindness in withholding from public 
 knowledge their names and specific lack of qualification for the 
 position which they hold. We are saying what we say unwillingly 
 but because we are profoundly moved by a sense of the wrong that 
 is being done daily to the children over whose education the State 
 
REPORT OF THE SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL COMMISSION, 7 
 
 has affected to assume control. And if the General Assembly desires 
 names of persons and places, and further evidence of the conditions 
 which we describe, such particulars and evidence will be furnished. 
 
 It is pleasant to be able to add that there is another side to the 
 picture. In our cities, in most of our boroughs, and in the more 
 populous towns, in those small towns also in which still persists 
 effectively something of the New England spirit of earlier days, 
 the schools, while doubtless susceptible of improvement like all other 
 human enterprises, are good. The children in such places are being 
 educated. The teachers are aHve to their responsibilities and 
 opportunities. 
 
 But alas for the little ones whose lot is cast elsewhere in our 
 commonwealth; and to whom, notwithstanding their presumed ability 
 and intellect, notwithstanding their possible genius, there comes no 
 chance whatever of developing the best or even a considerable part 
 of that which is good within them. 
 
 Your Commission gladly report that in their opinion the State 
 Board has done and is doing everything that is possible under the 
 laws which govern their action for the proper administration of the 
 schools. The State has established a State Board of Education, 
 but it has not armed it with authority to carry out the legitimate 
 purposes of such a Board. The Board is faithful, industrious, careful, 
 skilful. Its Secretary is one of the hardest worked and most 
 efficient servants of the State. The Board often finds itself confronted 
 by unwillingness to accept advice, resentment of counsel, determined 
 opposition to an3rthing like control. The statutes whose operation 
 would tend and do tend to an amelioration of evil are mostly per- 
 missive. These statutes in our opinion should be changed so that 
 they should compel rather than permit. In short, the Commission 
 is distinctly of the opinion that the State Board should be armed 
 with lawful authority to supervise and control the educational 
 interests of the State. To this end, the Commission has submitted 
 a considerable number of recommendations, which will be found below. 
 Some of these recommendations are fundamental and if carried into 
 effect by appropriate legislation will modify profoundly the educational 
 system of the State. Others refer to matters of detail and are 
 submitted as recommendations of what we think would be advisable 
 in matters not of the first importance. 
 
 First of all, as will be seen, we earnestly recommend the early 
 abolition of school districts and of the whole district system of 
 management within the borders of our State. We recognize that 
 in some large towns the question of town control is rather economic 
 than educational. We believe that in the City of Hartford, for 
 example, it is doubtful whether the schools as schools would be 
 improved by consolidation, yet we cannot imagine that the schools 
 
8 REPORT OF THE SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL COMMISSION. 
 
 would be injured through such a process. If in the opinion of the 
 legislature it should seem wise to exempt incorporated cities from 
 enforced consolidation, probably no harm would be done to educational 
 interests, though we should think it a pity if such communities would 
 not in the interests of the whole State consent to a change in their 
 own methods. But in the rural districts we believe that the district 
 system is responsible for a very considerable part of the evils which 
 we find to exist. 
 
 It is further recommended that the State be divided into territories 
 of convenient size, taking into account population as well as area, 
 for adequate supervision, these territories to be called supervisory 
 districts or by* such other title as seems appropriate; and that a 
 supervisor, who should devote practically his whole time to the work 
 of supervision, should be appointed, by local authority, in accordance 
 with the conditions now prescribed in section 132 of the school laws, 
 for each such territory. These supervisors should be responsible 
 to the State Board, which Board should prescribe their duties, 
 receive their reports, and have the power of removal for cause. 
 Such a step as this will make it possible to develop teachers and 
 promptly to sift out the good from the bad. It is obviously im- 
 possible for the Secretary of the State Board to exercise personally 
 the minute supervision over all the schools in the State which is 
 distinctly required, and it is in our opinion highly desirable that a 
 corps of competent supervisors should be immediately put in charge 
 of the schools. 
 
 It will be seen that we recommend also the substantial abolition 
 even of town lines in the matter of attendance. There is no adequate 
 reason for compelling children to travel an unreasonable distance in 
 order to attend school when another school is almost at their door, 
 the other school being established and largely maintained by the 
 authority and resources of tlie State in which these children are 
 resident. 
 
 We recommend further and most earnestly that after a brief period 
 no person be allowed to teach in any school in this State of whose 
 qualifications for the work the State Board is not well assured. 
 The system of local examinations is in our opinion essentially bad 
 in its results, though we cheerfully admit that persons so appointed 
 are not invariably poor teachers. But in so many cases they are poor 
 teachers that the demand for a diflferent and more centralized system 
 seems to us irresistible. 
 
 It is a simple matter of fact that the salaries paid to teachers, 
 especially in the smaller schools in this State, are much less than 
 the salaries paid for similar work in other and neighboring common- 
 wealths. The result of this is that it is difficult to retain our better 
 teachers. The obvious way to remedy this difficulty is to increase 
 
REPORT OF THE SPECIAI, EDUCATIONAL COMMISSION. 9 
 
 the salaries of our teachers so that they will be comparable with 
 those paid in other states, and it is believed that the extension of the 
 operation of the average attendance law will contribute to this end. 
 Meantime, however, it may fairly be considered that the graduates 
 of our normal schools, where tuition is absolutely free, may quite 
 properly be required to teach within the State for a definite period. 
 The men and women who receive this preparation at the expense 
 of the State do now when entering upon their normal course file a 
 declaration of their intention to teach in the State of Connecticut. 
 This declaration, however, carries with it but little sense of obligation. 
 It would seem desirable that such normal pupils should sign a definite 
 contract to teach in the State for a specific period of, say, not less 
 than three years. Probably such a contract would be difficult of 
 enforcement if a teacher wished to violate it. Yet it would carry 
 with it an emphatic suggestion of duty, and furthermore it is possible 
 that the school authorities of other states would hesitate to employ 
 a teacher who had, in order to accept their proposition, violated a 
 written contract. In this connection the Commission suggest, but 
 without positive recommendation, that it might be desirable to estab- 
 lish a certain number of limited cash scholarships in our normal 
 schools for pupils of special promise and who as a return for the 
 pecuniary aid thus afforded would contract to teach for a definite 
 number of years in any school in the State to which they should be 
 assigned by the State Board of Education. It seems to us that in 
 time this process might result in securing better qualified teachers 
 in the smaller schools. The cash value of such a scholarship need 
 not exceed $150 a year. 
 
 We recommend that the operation of the so-called average attend- 
 ance act be extended so as to include technically every town in the 
 State. Such an enlargement of its scope will not, of course, include 
 all or nearly all of the towns in the State. It will simply ensure 
 this, that in no town in the State shall there be less than twenty-five 
 dollars expended annually per pupil in average attendance in providing 
 for his education. It will tend to even up the educational opportuni- 
 ties of the children of the State and it will do this at an expense 
 which in view of the saving possible to be attained in other directions 
 is entirely reasonable. 
 
 We recommend that whereas the school laws now provide (Section 
 169) "that the school houses and out-buildings must be satisfactory 
 to the Board of School Visitors," the law should provide that such 
 buildings must be satisfactory to the supervisor appointed in accord- 
 ance with the recommendation above submitted. 
 
 It is the opinion of your Commission that no school in which 
 the average attendance is less than twelve should be continued but 
 that in every case in which a school is closed for lack of reasonable 
 
lO REPORT OF THB SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL COMMISSION. 
 
 attendance, the pupils should be carried when necessary to and from 
 some larger school in their neighborhood. And in this connection 
 we feel it important that in those cases and in the cases already 
 provided for the means employed for transportation should be subject 
 to the approval and under the control of the supervisor. 
 
 We are also of the opinion that either the State or the supervision 
 district or the town should provide free text books for all the children. 
 Under present regulations there is grave difficulty in the towns in 
 which free text books are not yet provided. Some of the children 
 have books, for some of the children whose parents are apparently 
 unable to purchase books they are provided as an act of charity by 
 th€ town, but there are many children whose parents though well 
 able to provide text books do not as a matter of fact provide them. 
 And the operation of the school is hindered or even made impossible 
 by this condition of affairs. 
 
 The time is at hand when, in our opinion, the State must take 
 up and consider seriously the problem of establishing State High 
 Schools in localities remote from the larger communities in which 
 high schools now exist. It is certainly desirable that every boy 
 and girl in Connecticut should have the opportunity to attend a 
 high school, and it is probable that in state high schools carefully 
 located so as to be accessible and convenient for relatively large 
 rural areas will be found the only solution of the question. 
 
 Your Commission are of the opinion that it is the duty of the State 
 to provide to a considerable extent industrial education, including 
 training in at least the elements of agriculture. Certain of our 
 recommendations bear directly upon this problem. It is for the 
 interest of the State that the successive generations of young men 
 and women, as they take up their work in life, should be able to do 
 something of more importance than the unskilled labor or the skilled 
 labor unskilfully performed which now seems to occupy them as a 
 matter of necessity. The reason for any public training is the desire 
 of the State that its citizens should be competent; and no man or 
 woman is competent to discharge the duties of citizenship or to 
 contribute proportionately to the prosperity of the commonwealth 
 who has not been taught how to do something which the common- 
 wealth desires to be done, which indeed must be done if we are to 
 maintain our civilization and improve upon it. 
 
 Before presenting the specific recommendations, the more important 
 of which have been mentioned above, your Commission wish to call 
 the attention of the General Assembly to the meaning of the Statutes 
 now governing the matter of the employment of children between 
 fourteen and sixteen years of age. In general it may be said that 
 among the good things accomplished by the State Board may properly 
 be reckoned the general enforcement of the attendance law and the 
 
REPORT OF THE SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL COMMISSION. II 
 
 child labor law. It is pretty apparent, however, that one feature of 
 these provisions has been partially lost sight of or has been found 
 uncommonly difficult of enforcement. We quote from Section 17 of 
 the School Laws : 
 
 "Every parent or other person having the control of a child over 
 seven and under sixteen years of age shall cause such child to attend 
 a public day school regularly during the hours and terms the public 
 school . . . is in session . . . Children over fourteen years 
 of age shall not be subject to the requirements of this section while 
 lawfully employed at labor at home or elsewhere. . . . " 
 
 It is the obvious intention of these provisions that children between 
 fourteen and sixteen years of age shall attend school regularly, or 
 shall labor regularly at some definite employment. Yet there is 
 not much doubt but that the statutes are regarded as closing the 
 compulsory school age at fourteen except in cases in which the 
 children have not made fair progress up to that age. It is reported 
 to us that in many parts of the State children between fourteen and 
 sixteen years of age are neither at school nor engaged in any regular 
 employment. In the opinion of your Commission a child is not 
 employed at home within the meaning of the statute because he or 
 she has certain minor duties such as are commonly called in the 
 country districts "chores," or such as assisting in a small way in 
 the duties of housekeeping; but that a child is employed within the 
 meaning of the statute when engaged in actual daily service under 
 pay or in the regular and systematic assistance of the parents.. That 
 this permission to leave school at the age of fourteen in order to 
 engage in labor has been abused we have no doubt, and we earnestly 
 recommend that the statute be amended so as to make it perfectly 
 clear that desultory employment of no specific character does not 
 exempt a child from school attendance vmder the law. 
 
 Your Commission, further, express the fear that Section 291 of 
 the school laws, relating to fire-escapes and stairways, is not every- 
 where observed. 
 
 Bills will be presented to this General Assembly providing for the 
 carrying out of the various recommendations which have been sub- 
 mitted by your Commission. Should any considerable number of 
 our recommendations be adopted it is clearly evident that a complete 
 revision and codification of the School Laws of the State will become 
 necessary. Such a codification is probably desirable now. Yet in 
 view of the fact that we hope to see the laws greatly changed, your 
 Commission have deemed it unwise to suggest any such action until 
 this report shall have been considered. 
 
 Your commission realize that if their recommendations are approved 
 and made effective by appropriate legislation, the amount of the annual 
 
12 REPORT OF THE SPECIAI, EDUCATIONAL COMMISSION, 
 
 appropriation to education on the part of the State will be increased. 
 Something at least will be saved if the three or four hundred schools 
 above described are closed. Yet as the children now in attendance 
 at such schools must in most cases be transported at some expense 
 to the larger schools, the saving in teachers' wages, while more, 
 probably, than the cost of transportation, will ameliorate the financial 
 situation but little. It seems to us that the State must face the 
 necessity of spending more money on its schools, the necessity of 
 providing the education which it compels its children to accept, the 
 necessity of controlling those enlarged expenditures in such a way 
 as will secure the highest advantage to the coming citizens of the 
 commonwealth. It is but poor economy to spend money on the 
 material necessities and luxuries of twentieth century civilization 
 unless we are ready also to spend sufficient sums in the effort to 
 ensure an educated and intelligent population to enjoy the material 
 heritage which they are to receive from us. 
 
 Appended to this report are the recommendations above discussed, 
 together with some others of which specific mention has not been 
 made. 
 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 FOR THE COMMISSION, 
 Flavel S. Luther, 
 Charles H. Tibbits, 
 Moses E. Banks, 
 Frank P. Warren, 
 Luther K. Zabriskie. 
 
 RECOMMENDATIONS. 
 
 1. That after a certain date the present "district system" be 
 abolished, that town school committees be elected, and that the towns 
 be grouped so as to constitute territories for convenient supervision. 
 
 2. That territorial supervisors be elected or appointed substantially 
 in accordance with the provisions of Chapter X of the Connecticut 
 School Laws, their duties to be prescribed by the State Board. 
 
 3. That as a part of their duties the supervisors shall prescribe 
 examinations suited to pupils in the eighth or higher grades and issue 
 to pupils satisfactorily passing these examinations diplomas certifying 
 to their attainments. 
 
 4. That after a certain date no teacher, not approved by the State 
 Board of Education, shall be appointed to teach school in the State. 
 
 5. That the provisions of the average attendance grant be extended 
 so that in no town shall there be less than twenty-five dollars expended 
 annually for each pupil in average attendance in providing for his 
 education. 
 
REPORT OF THE SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL, COMMISSION. 1 3 
 
 6. That after a certain date no school shall be maintained in any 
 town in the State in which the average attendance shall fall below 
 12 pupils ; and pupils belonging to such discontinued schools must 
 be carried to some central school according to the provisions of 
 section 48 of the School Laws. 
 
 7. That the means provided for transportation of children to and 
 from school must be approved by the territorial supervisor. 
 
 8. That section 169 of the Connecticut School Laws be amended 
 so that the school houses and out-buildings must be maintained in a 
 condition satisfactory to the territorial supervisor. 
 
 9. That pupils may attend the school that is nearest their places 
 of residence, and in all such cases in which the nearest school is in 
 an adjoining town, the town in which they reside shall pay their pro 
 rata tuition. 
 
 10. That the attention of the State Board of Education be called 
 to the fact that children between 14 and 16 years of age are not 
 exempt from school attendance under the law unless actually employed 
 at labor. 
 
 11. That Section 38 be amended so that all the public schools shall 
 be maintained for at least thirty-eight weeks in each year. 
 
 12. That there shall be established cash scholarships in the Normal 
 Schools of the State for promising pupils selected by competitive 
 examination, the beneficiaries to sign a contract to teach for five 
 years in any school to which they are assigned by the State Board. 
 
 13. That after a certain date the school committee in every town 
 in which free text books are not supplied shall purchase text books 
 and other school supplies used in the public schools, and, subject to 
 such regulations as to their care and custody as it may prescribe, loan 
 them to the pupils of such schools free of charge, and, if instruction 
 is given therein in the use of tools and cooking, may so purchase and 
 loan the tools, implements, and materials necessary therefor ; and 
 that no text books not approved by the State Board of Education 
 shall be used. 
 
 14. That the State Board of Education be authorized to make 
 provision for the teaching of agriculture in the Normal Schools in 
 the State. 
 
 15. That after a certain date the course of study in the rural 
 schools shall include the elements of agriculture. 
 
 16. That provision be made for instruction, in the academies and 
 high schools of the State, in the science and practice of common school 
 teaching, under a course to be prescribed by the State Board of 
 Education. 
 
 17. That line 6 of section 76 of the Connecticut School Laws, 
 relating to evening schools, be amended by striking out the word 
 "one" so that instruction in any study usually taught in a high school 
 
14 REPORT OF THE SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL COMMISSION. 
 
 may be given on petition of at least twenty persons over 14 years 
 of age, competent to pursue high school studies. 
 
 18. That no person who is related by blood or marriage to any 
 member of the school committee of any town shall be employed as 
 a teacher by such committee, except upon the consent of two-thirds 
 of the members thereof. 
 
 19. That it shall be the duty of the principal or other person in 
 charge of every public school having more than 100 pupils to instruct 
 and train the pupils by means of drills so that they may in a sudden 
 emergency be able to leave the school building in the shortest possible 
 time and without confusion or panic; and that such drills or rapid 
 dismissals shall be held at least once in each month. 
 
 20. That every teacher, before entering upon the school duties of 
 the year, shall be required to take a suitable oath of office. 
 
 21. That the school committee of any city or town may retire from 
 active service and place upon the pension roll any teacher of such city 
 or town who is sixty years old or over, or is, in the judgment of said 
 committee, incapacitated for useful service, and who has faithfully 
 served in the State for twenty-five years; provided that the expense 
 so incurred by the town shall not be computed as part of the school 
 expense in determining eligibility to benefits of the average attendance 
 grant. 
 
 22. That it shall be the duty of the State Board of Education to 
 prepare, for the use of the public schools of the State, a program 
 providing for a salute to the flag at the opening of each day of school, 
 and such other patriotic exercises as may be deemed by the Board to 
 be expedient, under such regulations and instructions as may best 
 meet the varied requirements of the different grades in such schools. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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