Now, in the report of the Hon. Abram B. Weaver, Superintendent of Public Education, made in the same year (1871), he says: "The aggregate and the average attendance was greater absolutely, and in proportion to population, than in any former year"--"... 11,700 schools were maintained, 17,500 teachers were employed, and about $10,000,000 were expended" (_Rep. Com. of Education_, 1871, p. 291). "The average number of pupils for the whole state in attendance each day of the entire term in 1870 was 16,284, more than in 1869, etc." (p. 292). And in New York City, we are told in the same report (p. 301 of _Report of Commissioners of Education_, 1871), "It is interesting to note, as evidence of the substantial progress of free schools in New York City, that, while the whole population of the city has increased but about 14 per cent. in the last ten years, the average attendance of pupils has increased nearly 54 per cent. in the same time." Now, wherein consists the _injury_ complained of? While the average attendance on the "free public schools" was actually increasing, whence came the children attending in these "damp basements of churches," and what necessity drove them from the "educational palaces"? Is the condition, in certain respects, of our public schools such as is pictured by the writer of the following, taken from the New York _Herald_ of Feb. 9, 1873: "PUBLIC-SCHOOL ABUSES. "TO THE EDITOR OF THE HERALD: "Your articles on school ventilation have my hearty approval. I have sent my two youngest boys for two successive winters to the boys' school on Thirteenth street, near Sixth avenue (primary department), but each time they remained from one to two weeks, and then had to remain home, owing to a severe cold or inflammation of the lungs, which kept them away for weeks. Having tried the school thus I was compelled to remove them this winter to a private school, where they have attended regularly and have been in good health. No judgment is used in that department in regard to ventilation. Sometimes the room is excessively warm; at other times the windows on both sides of the house are opened, and the current of cold air descending on the heads of the children causes catarrhal affections and pneumonia. "Such complaints as the following have been made about the girls' school, Twelfth street, near University place. A continual system of stealing is going on after they leave in the afternoon. The desks locked up are opened and articles removed, even books as well as other things, and if anything is accidentally left by the scholars it is always gone before morning. Nothing is safe in that school, and the question is, who steals it? Complaints, I understand, have been made, but no steps taken to correct it again.