Children under 14 are not to be employed for wages while the public schools are in ses sion, and unless certain educational require ments are complied with employment under 16 is prohibited in factories, workshops or mer cantile establishments. There are also strin gent provisions as to the employment of minors between 16 and 21, intended to prevent illiter acy_ Indeed the educational requirements are so correlated with provisions as to employment and such effective means are provided, for en forcement of the laws that the intellectual, moral and physical status of minors of either sex is carefully guarded. In every respect the legislation of of this character is upon a high plane.
There is a provision for the certification of the qualifications of high school teachers by the board of education, and a State-wide retire ment system for teachers in the public schools, with annuities and pensions.
A department of university extension, under direction of the State Board of Education, organizes and maintains a comprehensive sys tem of extension teaching designed to supple ment, or to fill gaps in, other established edu cational agencies, by means of vocational and cultural classes conducted by part-time teachers or by correspondence courses. Many such courses, are offered for classes when they do not duplicate educational opportunities given at nominal fees by other institutions. There are no fees for instruction in such classes. Twenty students must enroll in order to form a class.
The number of children attending theub lic schools during the year ending 30 June 1918, covered by the latest published returns, was 604,023; the average membership, 547,288, and the average attendance, 506,474, or 93 per gent of the average membership. At the same time there were 464621 children in the State between the ages of 7 and 14. The law requir ing school attendance is well enforced.
The total annual expenditure for public school support and outlay for the same year was $30,600,088, of which $3,929,213 was for new buildings, alterations and permanent re pairs. Of the whole amount required for an nual support about 97 per cent was derived from local taxation. The average cost to the towns in taxation was $48.73 for the school support of each child in the average member ship, (not including outlay for new buildings) requiring an expenditure of $5.45 for each $1,000 of the State's valuation, or about 27 per cent of the average tax for all purposes.
The effective ventilation of school buildings is required under definite provisions of law en forced by the State inspector of factories and public buildings, and in the larger towns and cities these btuldings are generally of the high est types of such edifices in this and in all other respects, large numbers having been erected within recent years.
The higher educational institutions within the State include the following: Harvard Col lege (Qv.) at Cambridge, founded 1636; Wil liams College (q.v.) at Williamstown, 1793;
Amherst College (q.v.) at Amherst, 1825; Mount Holyoke College (q.v.), for women, at South Hadley, 1837; College of the Holy Cross at Worcester, 1843; Tufts College (q.v.) at Medford, 1850; Massachusetts Institute of Technology at Boston, 1861; Boston College at Boston, 1863; Massachusetts Agricultural Col lege at Amherst, 1863; Worcester Polytechnic Institute at Worcester, 1865; Boston Univer sity at Boston, 1869; Wellesley College (q.v.), for women, at Wellesley, 1870; Smith College (q.v.), for women, at Northampton, 1871; Clark, University and Clark College at Wor cester, 1887-1902; Simmons College at Bos ton, 1899; Massachusett College of Pharmacy at Boston, founded 1823, incorporated 1852; Middlesex College of Medicine and Surgery at Cambridge, founded 1846, incorporated 1850; Massachusetts College of Osteopathy at Cam bridge, established 1897, incorporated 189d, Wheaton College at Norton, founded 1834, in corporated 1912, and Northeastern College at Boston, 1916. Radcliffe College at Cambridge and Jackson College at Medford having certain affiliations with Harvard and Tufts, respec tively, but no legal connection with them, are devoted to the collegiate education of women, and there are also many seminaries and pri vate schools of various grades in the State.
Libraries.— Free public libraries form an important element in the educational equipment of the State. These institutions, free to all the citizens in the various cities and towns, are practically universal, only a fractional percent age of the population being without such privi leges. The establishment of such libraries has in recent years been fostered by grants of money from the State treasury, and by the creation of a Free Public Library commission, appointed by the governor, established to mote public library usefulness and to founding such institutions where not then exist ing. This commission makes annual reports to the legislature upon matters within its jurisdic tion. There are also numerous circulating and association libraries, not free to the public_ The latest returns frbm the public libraries within the State show mote than 400 such libraries, containing about 6,700,000 bound volumes and having a circulation for home use of more than 14,033,000 volumes. The annual appropriation from taxes for such libraries by the various cities and towns totaled about $1,355,600. The Boston Public Library, housed in a building which is one of the most noteworthy archi tectural monuments in the United States, is (except New York) the largest free public circulating library in the country, and contains about 1,175,000 volumes; the Harvard Univer sity Library has more than 1,230,000; the Bos ton Athenmum, 265,000; and the public libraries at Springfield and Worcester; the State Li brary in the State House at Boston, and that of the American Antiquarian Society at Wor cester, each exceed 200,000 volumes. (See LIBRARIES).