INCREASE IN AVERAGE ATTENDANCE.-The next table shows the increase and the rate of increase in the average attendance in each borough during the school year 18991900:

COMPARISON BETWEEN THE INCREASE IN ATTENDANCE AND THE INCREASE IN SITTINGS.-Bringing together the two rates of increase for the year-the rate of increase in average attendance and the rate of increase in sittings-we obtain the following result:

It will thus be seen that the rate of increase in sittings kept pace in Manhattan and The Bronx and in Queens with the rate of increase in average attendance, while in Brooklyn and in Richmond the contrary was the case—the increase in average attendance far exceeded the increase in sittings. In Richmond, however, existing accommodations are sufficient for the present, except in the matter of high schools.

In Brooklyn, on the other hand, the school accommodations are deplorably deficient. This is brought out in a most striking manner by considering the number of children in each borough who are compelled, through lack of school accommodations, to attend school only part of the school day. The following table shows the number of these children at the close of the last school year:

Since the statistics given above were prepared, the number of children attending school part time in Brooklyn has increased to about 43,000, while the number in Manhattan. and The Bronx has increased to 20,500.

The number of classrooms that remained unoccupied in the several boroughs on June 30 is exhibited in the following tables:

From all the facts presented three conclusions are evident: First.-Brooklyn stands more in need of a large increase in school accommodations than any other borough.

Second. The 16,241 sittings that will be provided in the new buildings now in course of construction in Brooklyn not only are inadequate to accommodate half of the children who are now attending school on part time, but are inadequate to make provision for the natural increase in the number of children of school age.

Third. While all the new buildings already undertaken, or planned for, in Manhattan and The Bronx, are urgently needed to relieve congested districts and to provide for the natural increase, yet this fact does not relieve the borough authorities from making every possible attempt to utilize the very large number of unoccupied rooms. These rooms-130 in number-would provide accommodations for over 5,000 children. It is gratifying, however, to find that the number of unoccupied rooms in Manhattan and The Bronx decreased from 148 in 1899 to 130 in 1900.

That so many rooms are unoccupied is doubtless due to two causes the decrease of population in some of the older neighborhoods and the establishment of schools in new neighborhoods somewhat in advance of population.

* Since writing the above, I have been informed by Borough Superintendent Jasper that many of the rooms referred to have been occupied by classes.