Hardcover 8vo, rebacked in sympathetically styled cloth and with cosmetic restoration to corners, otherwise Very Good. A formative look at the New York Public School System during an early period of great expansion. The report champions the successful development of the Common School System from a resort for "charity scholars" to providing a quality of education that appeals to "every rank and class of children," even those in upper-class families who would have previously enrolled in private schools. There is enthusiastic reporting on the Free Academy (ancestor to the CUNY/SUNY system), which is touted as the highest evidence of the Common School System's purpose and success.Includes all of the expected financial disclosures and pecuniary details (including a proposed "public education stock"), as well as an in-depth look at the pedagogical considerations being made in the public school system's formative years—not only what books to use, but what the scope of public education itself should be, whether morality should be taught, how students should be organized and classes structured, whether women are suited to higher education, and so on. There are testimonials from adult Evening School students and consideration of the impact of public education on labor. The Normal School report includes examples of play scripts and object lessons, suggestions on the benefits (and possible necessity) of maternal character in primary school instruction, and other considerations that would ultimately trickle down to how the primary and grammar schools would be structured.CONTENTS: Annual report on the 262 schools under the purview of the NY Board of Education, divided into Grammar Schools for Boys, Grammar Schools for Girls, Primary Schools, Colored Schools, Corporate and Asylum Schools, Evening Schools, and the Free Academy, 106pp; City Superintendent Report, 64pp; Report on Evening Schools, 56pp; Report on Normal Schools, 32pp; Report on the Free Academy, 48pp; 39 plates plus descriptive text: Board of Education building (1 plate); plans for School No. 4, Rivington St. (1 engraving of the facade, 1 transverse section, 3 folding plans, and 1 plate of the novel "hot water apparatus" steam boiler that would provide the first central heating. A 1-2 page overview, engraving of the building facade and 2-3 floor plans are also furnished for: Schools No. 11, 37, 43, 48, 49, 50, and Primary Schools 56 and 58; 1 additional plate showing schoolhouse no. 44, and 3 plates showcasing the NY Free Academy building, chapel, and drawing room.