----------------------+----------+---------+--------+----------- Organization. | Present. | Absent. | Total. | Percentage | | | | Present. ----------------------+----------+---------+--------+----------- Brigade Commander and | | | | Staff | 11 | -- | 11 | -- Thirteenth Regt | 529 | 118 | 647 | 81.61 Fourteenth Regt | 532 | 149 | 681 | 78.11 Twenty-third Regt | 770 | 35 | 805 | 95.65 Forty-seventh Regt | 521 | 48 | 569 | 91.56 Third Battery. | 68 | 8 | 76 | 89.47 Seventeenth Sep. Co. | 51 | 9 | 60 | 85.00 Signal Corps | 40 | 1 | 41 | 97.56 +----------+---------+--------+----------- Total | 2,522 | 368 | 2,890 | ----------------------+----------+---------+--------+----------- The difficulties arising from inadequate school accommodations, to meet which Mayor Low and other mayors had urged broad and sufficient action, continued to hamper the action of the department of public instruction. The development of the department under the superintendency of William H. Maxwell has been along thoroughly modern lines. Recent reforms have had a tendency to improve the quality of teachers by placing obstacles in the path of the incompetent. To a considerable extent these reforms have diminished the chances of political interference in the working of the school system. The successful establishment, in 1878, of a Central Grammar School, admitting graduates from the public schools, was followed by the organization of separate high schools for boys and girls, and afterward by a manual training school, and a movement for the establishment of kindergarten classes and definite means of physical culture. On October 31, 1893, there were on register in the public schools of the city 102,468 pupils,--more than 2000 in excess of the sittings. For many years preceding this date a large number of classes had provided a half day's schooling only for the registered pupils, forcing the teachers of these classes to assume responsibility for two large classes of children on each school day. [Illustration: STATUE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON IN FRONT OF THE HAMILTON CLUB HOUSE] In his report for the year ending December 31, 1892, Superintendent Maxwell said:--