The old and obsolete sets of Harper's Grammars, Webster's Spellers, and Swinton's Geography have been discarded and replaced by the regular series used in all the Nevada city and graded schools. Arithmetic is the basis of all gradation in studies in the school, and particular attention is paid to the mental work and written analysis of problems. One-half of the arithmetic work is from the pupil's text books; the other half consists of supplementary problems from other works, and good common sense, every day, practical problems propounded in the class for solution and demonstration. LETTER WRITING. This very important, but much neglected and abused branch of English, is made a regular study from the second to the sixth grades. The pupils are drilled and practiced in the writing and composition of all the various letter forms, most especially those of business and the ordinary family and friendship letters. They send letters to relatives and friends once each month, and are encouraged in writing and sending business letters and orders for themselves. HOME LIBRARY. To the home library, in the past six months, have been added the Encyclopedia Brittanica in twenty-five volumes, and a few volumes donated by friends. This should be the initiatory step to a laudable work that of filling the bookcases with an entire new set of books; and I would take this opportunity of urging upon the Honorable Board the advisability of providing the children of this institution with a supply of books suited to their tastes and comprehension. The reading of good books is in itself a great education. About 400 volumes may be counted now in the home library, of which probably no more than 150 volumes are actually readable, and these latter are rapidly becoming not such from the wear and tear naturally resulting from their constant reading by the pupils. Almost all the books are old and much worn, having been donated second-hand, and a very great many of them are far from being books adapted to a children's library. During the past year a great interest in and desire for reading has been strongly manifested by the pupils. Many of them have read, all or most all, the good books in the library, and now, like Oliver Twist, they are eagerly "asking for more." Cannot such hunger be appeased? In the education of these boys and girls, more than in any others, there should be ever present in our minds that our highest and truest aim should be progress, not push; profit, not per cent. ; and substance, not show. REPORT. To the Honorable Board of Directors of the State Orphans' Home: I herewith hand you a statement of the monthly and yearly expenses of the State Orphans' Home for the years 1891-92. I have arranged this statement in tables, so that it may be seen what it costs monthly to support the institution. Table No. 1 shows the monthly and yearly expenses for the years 1891–92. The expenses in the dry goods column includes girls' clothing, boys' stockings, sheeting, table linen, bed spreads, towels and girls' hats. The live stock column includes pasturage, carrots, bran, hay, cutting and hauling hay, horse shoeing and every thing in connection with the stock. The repairs and improvements column includes the painting of eighteen rooms, also the boys' play room, the boys' and girls' dormitories. The floors have had three coats of paint and the other wood work two, new dishes for the dining room, two stoves, papering seven rooms, whitening ceilings throughout, forty yards of new carpet, one new bed-room set, lumber for fitting up three rooms for children's clothing and carpenter to do the work, one large bath-tub for the boys' bath-room, kitchen utensils, one new refrigerator, one meat safe, new faucets and valves for water pipes, one hundred feet of one-inch pipe, one hundred feet of three-inch pipe, one lawn mower, rubber to cover four stairways, one new water closet in boys' dormitory with sheet-lead floor, twelve benches for school room, one churn, two ice cream freezers, one new set of work harness, office furniture, whitening fences, barns, wood house, etc., new pans for creamery, nine vaporizers, repairing range in kitchen, one hundred feet of one-inch rubber hose, one hundred feet of red-wood sewer boxes, repairing and painting buckboard, repairing the pipe column of well, also repairs done on harness, cart and other farming implements, barns, sheds, etc., new rakes, shovels, pitchforks, hoes, etc. The salary column includes salaries of all the help, that is, teacher, cook, assistant matron, nurse, workman, Superintendent and matron. Drugs and medicine column includes drugs and doctor's bill, combs, brushes, etc. Miscellaneous column includes care of Keating boy, insurance, funeral expenses of one boy, advertising for bids for supplies and numerous other items that come under that head. Showing the Repairs and Improvements Made From the Special Appropriation. January 1, 1891-By cash. To Carson & Tahoe Lumber and Flume Co., for lumber To Hall & Wilcox, repairing main building and school-house To Carson & Tahoe Lumber and Flume Co., flooring for boys' To E. B. Rail, for hinges and nails To Morning Appeal, advertising for bids. To George Meyers, for nails. To Unsworth & Lundberg, for painting main building and school-house To Unsworth & Lundberg, putting in glass and furnishing same To V. B. Cross, plastering and furnishing material. To C. E. Bray, hauling To Carson & Tahoe Lumber and Flume Co., moulding same To A. Baker, paint and oil for boys' playroom and outbuildings To T. W. Burke, stove pipes, etc., for schoolroom 11 15 To E. Higgins, carpenter, building closet for books, and seats in schoolroom 36 00 To A. Baker, paint and oil 22 52 1.00 To C. E. Bray, hauling. To E. Higgins, building shed and sewer boxes To Carson and Tahoe Lumber and Flume Co., for lumber for sewer boxes and shed. 34.00 69 04 To N. S. Moody, building and furnishing lumber for woodhouse (22x26) 227 00 56 00 8.00 To Carson & Tahoe Lumber and Flume Co., lumber for shed and fence To E. Higgins, building buggy shed and fence To Stevenson & Merrice, repairing windmill. To E. Sweeney, building new fence and repairing front fence. Balance 00 80 35 5.00 3,998 17 $1.83 Out of this appropriation there has been 1,633 feet of fencing built, all of red wood and cedar posts; one shed, 9x16; buggy shed, 17x26; also 350 feet of red wood sewer boxes, and the roofs repaired on all the buildings. |
