Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 17.djvu/700

682 is for adults, as a certain degree of proficiency in various studies must he attained for applicants to gain admission.

The students in these schools represent almost every branch of industry in the city. Yet at the commencement of the term of 1879 two weeks were devoted by teachers to an examination of the moral fitness of applicants for admission—more strictness, the reports tell us, being observed than formerly as to the character of admitted pupils. In consequence, as many were rejected as-unqualified as were permitted to attend.

No difference is made in New York in the system per se which governs the day and night schools. Some slight changes, however, mark the manner in which it is worked.

The hours of attendance in the night-schools are limited to two. The opening and closing formalities, which are distinguishing features of the day-schools, are omitted. And in the evening high school, although sixteen different books are on the list of studies, choice of subjects is voluntary with pupils. Two classes are instructed each evening by each teacher—the first from seven to eight o'clock, the second from eight to nine. Students are required to be present only when their classes are in session.

With such apparent liberty in the high school in regard to time and choice of subject for study, it has surprised those having charge that the attendance during the second month of the course for 1879 diminished from fifteen to twenty per cent. Remarking upon this unprecedented falling off, the principal of the school says that "there are few of those admitted who do not begin their work zealously, and I doubt not with strong determination to continue during the whole term." But this enthusiasm soon cooled off, and after a few weeks the students who had commenced study so earnestly deserted the schools. This high percentage of absenteeism, however, was principally confined to the younger scholars, adults availing themselves to a greater degree of the educational advantages offered.

In the primary and intermediate schools the number of children who were enrolled as applicants for admission into the evening classes during the past year was 10,269. All of these were under sixteen years of age. The absenteeism among them amounted to sixty-one per cent, of all whose names were placed upon the school registry. Vigorous measures have been suggested to check what is called by the Board of Managers "this deplorable decrease in the attendance of children." Principal among these has been a proposal to enact a truant law, to be enforced during the evening hours. If such a formula were passed, it would be as unavailing as Kin s Canute's edict to the waves. Natural law would prevent its being obeyed.

Of the children who did attend the evening schools the assistant superintendent makes the following remarks in his last report: "Hundreds of young children attend these schools after the labors of the