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few dollars by their labor, or if he must continue to struggle
to make his school, which more than one-half the time is
deserted, so attractive that the children will not stay away,
he fears that old age will find him still with a beggarly ac-
count of empty benches. Yet these are the only remedies
that are feasible. The people do not know the extent of this
evil. In this County, I believe I am safe in saying, not one-
half the children, within the legal ages, attend one-half of
any one term.

Another evil impedes us which is probably peculiar to this
County, the multplication of schools to such an extent that
they cannot all be filled wtth a proper number of pupils to
give interest to either children or teacher. This is owing to
three circumstances. 1st, to the geographical formation of
the County, previously referred to—our territory being cut up
into narrow necks of land by creeks or arms of the bay. We are
compelled to have schools in these neighborhoods, or deprive
a large number of our people of their privileges; yet the
population is often too small to give a sufficient number of
children to contribute an efficient school. 2nd, to the exis-
tence of large landed estates, which prevents a great density
of population, and enables and requires the proprietors to
employ private tutors, or to send their children abroad, as
Public Schools cannot be established for want of a proper
number of children. That section of the County which was
earliest subdivided into small farms has now, not only the
most numerous, but the best attended and best taught
schools; and there, too, we 'find the greatest interest in the
cause of education, the teacher most esteemed, and the
greatest amount of general intelligence. 3rd, to the exist-
ence in our midst of a large body of colored people, who are
by law excluded from the schools. No one would think of
advocating the admission of the children of these people
into the schools for the whites; but as they make up fully
two-fifths of our whole population, and much more than that
proportion of the laborers who furnish the largest part of the
children, our schools thereby fall short in their number of
pupils one-third, if not one-half of what they would be, were
our population homogeneous. This is an evil which time
only can remedy. The continued division of landed estates
and the gradual disappearance of the black race from among
us, will ultimately give us full and effective schools.

The President of this Board has made it his duty to visit
all the schools of the County, at least four times, except one
so remote that he was not able to reach it so often. In these
visits he has been thrown into contact, not only with the
teachers and children, but with the parents. Upon the
last he has endeavored to impress the necessity of Mending
their children regularly to school, and the duty of aiding
the teacher, by upholding his authority and by words of en-