41

IRREGULAR ATTENDANCE OF PUPILS !—How CAN IT BE
REMEDIED ?

It is estimated that not more than two-thirds of the chil-
dren enrolled upon the register attend regularly at School.
A teacher may exhibit 60 names upon the roll, while on aver-
age of 40 pupils receive daily instruction. The average ab-
sence is greater than 1/3 in some districts, less in others; the
regularity of attendance generally corresponding with the
degree of intelligence in the community. The most ignor-
ant, who need education most, value it the least. It is, of
course, impracticable for all the children registered to attend
daily; sickness or home work detains some, but, making full
allowance for these, the larger portion of absentees are truants,
or their parents so indifferent to the advantages of education
that they permit children to follow their own will and attend
or stay away from school at their own pleasure. Irregular at-
tendance is the great vice of the daily Public School. There
is no other cause that tends so much as this to neutralize the
efforts of teachers and disorganize schools. The evils result-
ing therefrom cannot be over-estimated. Hence the duty to
give this important subject most careful consideration, while
our school system is in its infancy, that wise plans may be
devised by which so great a vice may be remedied.

It is vain for teachers to labor for the advancement of
pupils who are in school only two or three days each week,
or who attend one term and stay away the next. Citizens
pay the school tax to little purpose, and children reap small
advantage from the provision made for their instruction un-
less they attend regularly at school.

To inquire into the causes of this irregularity would lead
to a discussion irrelevant to the purpose of this report, bu
the question most properly presents itself: " Can the evil be
remedied?" If it can, the remedy ought to be applied.

Some persons have suggested what is called " the compul-
sory system." They argue that if the safety and prosperity
of the State depend upon the intelligence of the people, the
law of self-preservation demands that attendance at school be
enforced. Others very pertinently ask : " Shall the State, at
great cost, establish a system of Free Public Schools, devo-
ting nearly a million dollars annually to the education
of youth, and then permit ignorant and avaricious parents,
or idle children, to squander \ of this revenue by irregular
attendance ?

The evil does not stop here. Not only is the State defraud-
ed in her benevolent purpose, but the children who attend
school regularly suffer. The teacher cannot discharge his
duties efficiently when pupils are not regularly in their seats.
The time employed in "bringing up" the absentees of yes-
terday is time lost to the school.