The school year at Avery Institute closed Thursday, June 30, the last three days being given to public exercises. Tuesday was “examination day.” I wish you all could see the school as it looked that morning from the rostrum. The bright eager eyes, the earnest faces, the neat appropriate style of dress, and the respectful scholar-like behavior of the students, even the tiniest ones, are a strong contrast to the appearance of the street children. You suppose our scholars belong to a better class than the street children? To be sure they do; but these same lower classes may become respectable, and have much more to encourage them to rise, than those had who have already struggled up. The visitors were, of course, friends of the school and of the scholars, and they said many kind and appreciative things about the school and the recitations they heard. We tried to make the examinations strictly honest. Every scholar was given a chance, as far as possible, to show what he had done in every study he had pursued; and to take the words of those who visited the different classes, the result was satisfactory. Wednesday was “children’s day,” when the little ones in the lower rooms gave the entertainment, and the older scholars attended as guests, with other friends of the small entertainers. The affair was very child-like and pretty. The recitations and dialogues were such as the children could appreciate; the songs bright, airy little things; and the singing a half-shy dainty rippling of very sweet music. Through all there was no appearance of the “Now-all-are-looking-at-me” feeling that sometimes makes children’s exhibitions such pitiful things.