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107

scholastic year for 1865-6 closed. On the 1st of September
last, the school was reopened under a new organization, as
set forth in the accompanying circular, in charge of an ex-
perienced and efficient principal, and is now in an improved
condition, giving encouraging promise of future advance-
ment in its character and influence as an institution of learn-
ing. The number of students now in attendance is thirty-
eight to wit, eighteen boys and twenty girls, with a pros-
pect of considerable increase so soon as the advantages the
school now offers shall be better understood by our citizens ;
numbers of whom still pursue the unwise practice of send-
ing their children away from home influences under the de-
ceptive impression that they can only be properly educated
in distant academies or boarding schools, where, too often,
they form associations that are of no advantage to them in
After life.

Under the present organization we have reserved the right
to introduce into the school, free of charge, a certain num-
ber of deserving pupils from the public schools of the differ-
ent districts of the county. The building has been re-
cently repaired, repainted and much improved, and is now
in excellent condition and admirably adapted to the purposes
of such an institution. The grounds around are spacious
and well enclosed. The school is completely furnished with
good furniture and with globes, maps and charts for illus-
trating the various branches of study, and also with some
philosophical and astronomical apparatus, and the nucleus
of a scnool library, which we hope to have enlarged by con-
tribntions from individual collections.

CONTINUANCE on LOCAL TAX.

2d. In reference to the second topic suggested in your cir-
cular No. 6, I may say that no steps have oeen taken in this
County to secure the continuance of the local tax for the sup-
port of Public Schools and the improvement of School
property.

In the judgment of our County Board and tkose with
whom we advised, no action on our part could, under the
provisions of the Constitution, be at present practically
available. The suggestion of the circular No. 6, viz: that
the popular assent contemplated by the proviso to Section
5th, of Article VIII, could be secured by an endorsement
upon the ballots of the words "For a School Tax," at the
then approaching election, did not seem, in our judgment, to
meet the case. In the absence of any warrant for making
such endorsements, emanating from some competent author-
ity, we could not see that the Legislature would be author-
ized to regard ballots thus prepared and cast, as evidence of
the popular will, especially when no provision is made for