and twenty-six thousand
two hundred and nineteen dollars and ninety cents ($226,219.90), while
there were nine hundred and fifty-three academies and private schools
maintained at a cost of $192,455.10. The whole number of children
attending public schools was 117,186, and the number educated in
private schools and academies was 25,083. The expense, therefore, was
$7.67 per pupil in the private schools, and only $1.93 each in the
public schools. These facts are indicative of the condition of public
sentiment. About one-sixth of the children of the state were educated in
academies and private schools, at a cost equal to about six-sevenths of
the amount paid for the education of the remaining five-sixths, who
attended the public schools. The returns also showed that there were
2,974 children between the ages of seven and fourteen years who did not
attend school, and 530 persons over fourteen years of age who were
unable to read and write. The incompleteness of these returns detracts
from their value; but, as those towns where the greatest interest
existed were more likely to respond to the call of the Legislature, it
is probable that the actual condition of the whole state was below that
of the two hundred and eighty-eight towns. The interest which the law of
1826 had called forth was temporary; and in March, 1832, the Committee
on Education, to whom was referred an order with instructions to inquire
into the expediency of providing a fund to furnish, in certain cases,
common schools with apparatus, books, and such other aid as may be
necessary to raise the standard of common school education, say that
they desire more accurate knowledge than could then be obtained. The
returns required by law were in many cases wholly neglected, and in
others they were inaccurately made. In the year 1831 returns were
received from only eighty-six towns. In order to obtain the desired
information, a special movement was made by the Legislature. The report
of the committee was printed in all the newspapers that published the
laws of the commonwealth, and the Secretary was directed to prepare and
present to the Legislature an abstract of the returns which should be
received from the several towns for the year 1832. The result of this
extraordinary effort was seen in returns from only ninety-nine of three
hundred and five towns, and even a large part of these were confessedly
inaccurate or incomplete. They present, however, some remarkable fac