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of more failures of success in schools than any other evil, the remedy for which lies wholly in our power to apply.

When we speak of teachers from out of town, we do not refer to those who, though living beyond the geographical limits of the town, have taught here for several terms; and whose schools have been among the best we had. But we do deprecate that too common and mistaken policy which leads us to employ so many teachers concerning whom we know little or nothing. There are often those who have had little or no experience; or if they have taught before may not have been very successful elsewhere, and coming into our schools without being acquainted with them or our methods of teaching; the result has been that they have not been successful. Such teachers we have almost uniformly found to fail in teaching the primary branches, and also in the judicious management of their schools. Were we necessitated to procure strangers for our teachers it would be enough to be deplored; but when we have a supply of teachers in our own town (or immediate vicinity) it does, to say the least, seem very foolish to pass them by and hire the first entire stranger who makes application. It is not enough to know that a teacher has obtained a sufficient amount of book learning, to be a student of some college; or has ever professed to have successfully taught several terms of school elsewhere; unless such an one have the unmistaken characteristics of an energetic, thorough, prudent, judicious and correctly moral teacher about him, we had better let him stay in his own country and among his own kin, where he may be appreciated, rather than run the great risk of having a poor school by employing him. Many students of colleges and the higher institutions of learning, are poor teachers from the fact that in their haste to study the higher branches. they have neglected the common ones, and now think them beneath their notice, and of course do not and often cannot teach them correctly or acceptably.

Many a graduate of our common district schools whose heart is in his work, and who feels that the very common though old fashioned studies of reading, spelling, writing, geography, arithmetic, &c., are of more practical importance to the great mass of pupils than algebra, geometry, Greek or Latin, (and so is not above trying to teach them thoroughly and practically.) is a hundred fold better instructor than the class aforementioned.

A noticeable and gratifying improvement in the keeping of the school registers is seen, many of the teachers and districts vying with each other in the neatness with which their registers shall be returned to the town clerk's office at the close of the school year. Still the slovenly and untidy appearance of some is, even now, shocking to behold. The division of the public money according to the average attendance of scholars-the recording of the moral as well as intellectual standing of the pupil in the registers, are each based upon right principles, and are beneficial to the schools.

One district in town which has supported eighteen weeks of school, has no marks of tardiness or absences upon the register for the year.

One of the greatest, if not the very greatest instrumentalities for the improvement and elevation of our schools, is found in the Teachers' Institutes,-for by these not only do teachers gain much important knowledge of the theory and practice of successful teaching, and are held to a more full realization of the importance and responsibleness of their vocation, but the great mass of the people are also aroused to a far greater degree of interest in the cause of education, and to a more generous and hearty co-operation with teachers and others engaged in the same important work. And may the day be far distant when Vermont shall so far forget her true interest as to virtually cripple or lessen their usefulness by withholding from them her confidence or generous support. When we shall have become fully awakened to the importance of a correct thorough mental and moral education for our children and ourselves; and shall fully realize that the prosperity and happiness of the state lies in the virtue and intelligence of her people, and shall each become colaborers and teachers in the important work, may we reasonably hope to see our common schools assume their proper position in our estimation, and becoming prosperous and useful in the highest degree.

J. E. WOODBURY, Concord.

One of the good things resulting from the operations of the school law, obliging the use of the school registers, is, that our community think that I could not make a "decent report" to the town unless I had obtained the statistical information contained in them. The first two years I had to collect the registers myself before March meeting. This year, every one was in the Clerk's office as soon as their respective schools were through, and my report was made from them. And there is quite a strife among the districts to see which will secure the greatest attendance. In one district the Committee offered a prize to every scholar that would attend every day through the term. The Registers tell the truth, and the whole truth concerning our schools. By them alone we only know whether we are advancing or whether on the retrograde. And they give Superintendents the privilege of reporting the facts to the community. As my report is not printed, I posted upon the wall of the Town Hall the most important part of the information gleaned from the Registers, for the benefit of my townsmen.

I speak with pleasure of the gratifying results that have accrued from the Institutes. There has been a resurrection in the mind of the community upon the subject of public schools, that is gratifying to behold. Teachers have been aroused, and begin to reflect upon their duties and the way they should perform them. The schools are becoming more practical and efficient. There are not so many poor teachers, and consequently but few failures. The public examination of teachers is not now a mere farce. New school houses are uprooting the "relics." Town and County Teachers' Associations are organized for the purpose of public discussions, and the mass of community are beginning to awake and to view this subject as an American citizen should. These are but a few of the results flowing directly from the Institutes.

And what shall be said of the assembled wisdom which is sent up to Montpelier? Rather what can be said? Where is the man that will presume to offer an apology? This boasted Green Mountain State too poor to pay $420 per year for fourteen Institutes. And then they will "gas over kits, cats and mice" long enough to pay for one hundred Institutes each year at $30 each. I believe there is a just retribution that awaits them. Just remember, Mr. Adams, that we must have our Institutes, and if this great State of Vermont is too poor to pay for them, that there are poor teachers enough in little stigmatized Essex that will, and cheerfully too. Better give the capital to the moles and bats" and turn Vermont into a pasture, rather than let her system of public schools be overthrown. For however poor her schools may be, all that she is to-day, she owes to them.

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I think, as I reported to the town, that if we wish for a quiet, orderly, peaceloving community in coming years if we hope that the years of our declining life may be passed in the prosperity of a peaceful and happy community, let us make a large provision for the instruction of the children, not only for those who gather around our own firesides, but for all the children of the town, and especially those, who, without much pains-taking, will be sure to remain in ignorance and vice. If there is any interest, which as good citizens we ought to foster with peculiar care, it is the interest of our public schools. If there is any object for which we ought to make liberal provisions-expending whatever money its most successful prosecution demands, that object is the education of the children of this town.

CHARLES W. KING, Lunenburg.

Parents are feeling a little more interest in the schools than heretofore. I see but one thing really in the way of success in our school matters, that is, as long as we have a living law,-we must have living men to work that law. Our school law as it now stands is a good machinery, constructed of good materials so far as it pertains to the State, and if the towns will funish as good material in the person of a superintendent, that is a man who has a heart full of the love of schools and is willing to sacrifice ease and time, and money if needed to help on the public school interest. One who instead of trying to make a school law will try to abide by and carry out the one we have, lending his whole influence to support the same. And then our districts bave something to do and say in this matter by finding or furnishing a suitable place

for their schools. In our town we have but one good house, and that one is nearly on one side of the district, so that some go one and a half or two miles to school while the furtherest on the other side are within one hundred and fifty rods, leaving a bone of contention. Others are either in a dilapidated condition or on a bad site, or have none at all, and keep their school in shops or dwelling houses. I insist upon it, that until we can have comfortable school houses provided by our districts, they have no right to expect the present system to advance as it should. But there is more to be expected from the school district than to furnish a good school house. They should furnish good material in the form of furniture, fixtures and apparatus suitable to be used in the school room. And yet more, they should be careful in the choice of their officers to get men who have an interest in their schools, especially for their prudential committees. If we get a committee that is more interested in saving a tax on the district than in the intellectual and moral training of the children of his district, that is, if he hires and puts into school anything that offers to teach, because a teacher comes along that will teach for one dollar or one dollar and twenty-five cents per week, to save a tax; that district ought not to find fault with the law, but with themselves for they are in the fault.

When we pay $1,50 or $2.00 per week even for a summer school, and have a good school we are the gainers. One good school is worth more than three poor ones. Let our districts see to it that they secure living men to act in concert with the town, and town act in concert with the state, and we shall lose all of our complaining spirit for we shall see our schools where they should be and what they should be. JACOB EVANS, Victory.

There is evidently a growing interest among the people in regard to the common schools in this town. Parents are realizing the importance of visiting the schools and showing to both teachers and pupils that some attention will be given to them that the subject of education of children in the common school is respectable and should be elevated to its proper position.

I think the suggestions in the last report of the Secretary of the Board of Education will be eminently useful, in respect to the proper construction, location, &c., of school houses.

O. F. FASSETT, Berkshire.

At our annual town meetings the past two years I was called upon by prudential committee men to report the condition of our common schools. It has been the custom from "time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary" for towns merely to call upon the overseer of the poor for his report of the condition of the town paupers. But not until one year ago last March meeting has a superintendent's report been called for.

I regarded the call at that time as a sign of interest in the right direction. My report was very favorably received.

IRA W. CLARK, Fairfax.

Although some objected to the new school laws when they first apper: · think they are working well with us and gaining favor each year.

yet I

The registers were most of them very poorly filled out last year, especi iy by district clerks. But with a little urging the most of them have done much better this

year.

CHARLES W. JANES, Montgov.

That the schools generally in this town are in a good condition, I think 'no one who knows about them would think of claiming. There have been some good schools-two or three excellent ones-during the year. There are some warm friends of education here--men of large liberal views, and we hope there is a

"good time coming" for the educational interests of the commuity. But the signs of its near approach are certainly not very great.

In two districts in town there has been no school at all during the year, while in four others there has been only one term. One reason for this is the miserable condition of the school houses in these districts, and yet there has not been a cent expended the past year in any of them to provide better. How long can districts and communities afford to live in this way? The school houses in town are generally poor-not more than three or four that can be called comfortable. I am more than ever convinced of the necessity of the school law with its or some equivalent machinery for getting at and stirring up the people. Is education the great secular interest of the state? Is it the real foundation of our temporal wealth and happiness, and prosperity as a people? Who believes it? And yet nothing is more certain. What is the argument then from the fact that so little comparatively of what needs to be done has been accomplished by the school law, and the efforts which its officers have been enabled to make? That we should give up trying-abandon the law and call the whole scheme for improving and awakening an interest in our schools a failure? Of course not. just the reverse. We must redouble our efforts and our outlay. When the Secretary of the Board has such liberal pay that he can afford to spend three or four times the amount of labor that he now does among the people--and when it is the same with town superintendents-and when something like a similar liberal policy is pursued in regard to Teachers' Institutes, and other means for improving the schools and awakening an interest in them-then will the money which is expended bring in something like a proportionate return. Not that I believe it

"cost so

does not now, great as the disadvantage under which it is used -actually accomplish more for the best good of the state than any other similar amount expended by the state for any purpose whatever. And yet a great deal of it is wasted, necessarily so, from the very fact that there is not twice or three times as much put with it. I might go on to show more particularly how and why this is so. But I have not the time, nor is it necessary. This is no new idea. It is one which wise men recognize and act upon everywhere in other matters. Time, money, labor, anything in order to be expended with true economy must be expended in quantities somewhere near commensurate with the greatness of the work to be accomplished. The bad economy of keeping one man at work three weeks upon a job which three men working together would accomplish in as many days-on the plea that it would much" to hire the extra help, would be apparent to every one. And yet not so wonderfully unlike it seems to be the policy of the state with reference to the improvement of her schools and hardly more reasonable the complaints which many make that the school law accomplishes so little. How could it be expected to accomplish much? Why shouldn't it fail? Hardly one of the officers under it but must do what he does, at a positive sacrifice to himself, while everybody seems to feel at perfect liberty to throw all the blocks and hindrances in the way possible, and then wonder and complain that the law is so insufficient, such a useless expense and must be repealed. The wonder is that it accomplishes anything, and the fact that so little comparatively of what needs to be done has been accomplished by it, is only an additional argument for larger effort and larger outlay. There is a great work to be done and it must be done whatever the cost, and the sooner we put forth efforts in some degree commensurate to the greatness of the work to be done, the more effectually and economically too, it will be done.

Most of our school districts have the usual annual "squabble" in regard to having wood and board on the scholar or Grand List. Why won't the Legislature “fix' that and so put an end, not only to all these troubles, but to not a few in the schools themselves.

G. B. TOLMAN, Sheldon.

The schools in the several districts of St. Albans have been well sustained during the past year, although in most of the districts the number of scholars has not been up to the usual average. Females, for the most part, have been employed as teachers, owing to the fact that so many of our young men have enlisted in the army.

There has been but little done for the improvement of our school houses and the surrounding grounds, which I regret, because I think that the good taste of handsome, commodious, well arranged, well ordered buildings, adorned with trees in the yard, exerts an important influence upon a certain part of the culture of our children. This is exemplified in the effect of the beautiful structure erected in District No. 4, which comprehends the village, upon the pupils who attend it. There you will see neatness, cleanliness, regularity, instead of disorder, love of mischief and dirt. The very proprieties of the building seem to inspire both teachers and scholars with emulation to preserve it from desecration and misuse.

The graded schools in District No. 4, have been in very successful operation this year, and besides the advantages of common school education, offer facilities of instruction to those who wish to pursue the higher branches of study, and what is of great consequence in the present exigency of our country, give ample opportunities to our daughters to fit themselves to become the educators of the youth of the land. While our young men have gone to the war, our young women must take their places in the public schools.

CHARLES FAY, St. Albans.

On the whole, I think the schools throughout the town have been, during the last twelve months, a little in advance of those of preceding years.

Our graded school, which consists of three distinct grades, thus far works well; and, I trust, in the end it will prove to be a complete success.

As the figures, which I send you, will speak for themselves, I am freed from the necessity of adding extended remarks. I may, however, briefly call attention to one point in the school law which I think should be modified. As the statute now stands a portion of the public money, as you are aware, is divided to the several districts according to the average daily attendance of the pupils of such district. This regulation really holds out to each district a premium for the shortest schools possible in consistency with the other provisions of the law. It would doubtless be better, if the statute were so amended, as to require this portion of the public money to be divided to the several districts according to the aggregate attendance of the pupils of said districts upon the schools within their respective limits. The law as thus modified would extend due encouragement to all such districts as are willing to sustain schools a greater number of months in the year than they are now positively required to sustain.

J. B. PERRY, Swanton.

In my written report to the annual town meeting, I stated my opinion that our public schools could never rise to their full usefulness till the people feel interest enough in them to look after them, and know what their employes are doing and attend to them as they do to other business. How natural the impression of a teacher, that if employers do not take sufficient interest in business to look or even inquire after the doings of the employed it makes but little difference how they spend their time, if they but get their board and wages. Grand Isle has been fortunate in getting good teachers the past year; but the great want of interest on the part of parents may be seen by the great number of tardy marks in the Registers. About one-sixth of the entire attendance is thus marked, and in two or three of the schools, where the teachers were apt to be late, I notice there were the most tardy scholars, and where the teachers were always prompt and began school precisely at the hour, the scholars were generally of the same spirit-showing the great influence of habits on the young mind. And I believe promptness a proper and necessary subject of discussion in the Institutes.

Boarding around, that relic of back-woods life, is another evil of our schools. A teacher should be regular in his meals, sleep, and other habits, to be uniform and even in school arrangements; and no teacher can keep a school regular unless the example comes from the teacher. Breakfast at all hours from six to nine o'clock, and as much variation in the hours of rising and retiring must necessarily derange a

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