Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1867-08-23
Preparatory Schools.

What school is there in Vermont Of such ac-
knowledged excellence that you can recon-
mend it at once, without hesitation or mis-
giving? We confess-aud it is matter o.
profound humiliation and regret-that we
know of none. Perhaps no school In the
State has stood higher, on the whole, than
Burr and Burton Seminary, at Manchester.
1t has had a small fund-receiviDg, we be-
lieye, the annual income of about $50 ,OOO-
and this has given it decided advantage
over those academies which depended on
tuition alone. Yet this school, Of late. has
accomplished but little. The Classical De-
paTtment has been in the hands of gentle
man whom we know to be a finished and
accurate scholar but MiddleburY College
has recently called him away, and gwen him
a professorship.
The institution at Barre deserves honora-
bic mention among Vermont schools. The
principal gives his personal attention to the
classics, and aims to furnish a thorough
course of preparatory training.
When Essex Academy was started, it had
an able and accomplished faculty. Perhaps
no Academy in Vermont ever had a better
board of teachers. 1t made large promises,
and kept them pretty well-for year, at
the expiration of which time the trustees
iound-what they should have known at the
start-that the receipts for term-bllls alone
were quite insufficient to maintain first
class school. Its first year was Its period Of
greatest prosperity. Those who started the
enterprise had not counted the cost of sue
cess.
But the history of this institution is not
at all peculiar. Many such have We known,
both In and out OF the State, which ran well
for time-two years to fiye-and then
dwindled down into very insignificant affairs,
needing lncessant nursing to keep them
alive, and totally unaule to support a res
pectable corps Of instructors, The idea gen
orally prevails among the originators Of these
schools, that the sole thing needed TO qua
rantee permanent success, is to erect Q
school building, and put in five hundred
dollars worth of apparatus and a cole &c
graduate. This done, pupils will come in
crowds from country and city, to avail them
selves of the unrivaled advantages held forth
in the somewhat rhetorical prospectus. But
the salubriOus air, the retiredness and IN
exceptionable morals Of the beautiful vii
lage, the grand or enchanting scenery, The
unsurpassed facilities, &c, &c, fail to draw
or draw but for short space, and only from
the immediate vicinity.
When the affair Is looked into, il Is founC
that two or three teachers give instruction
in all the languages and ologies. Menta
Arithmetic and Chemistry, Geography anC
Greek and the Calculus, and all that
lies between, are taught with equal facility
by the accomplished principal. Boys arr
admitted without any regard to a standard
and the school is strange mixture Of Higt
School and Primary. clearinghouse there
is often none, the pupils finding shelter
wherever they can, and not seldom barely
succeeding IN getting their heads in at all
Library there is none worth mentioning
What apparatus there is is half unseryicea
bic though. in truth, that makes little diff
ference, as the oyerworked principal has NJ
time for experiments. Chemistry is laugh
only from textbook, and the same is tru,
of the other sciences. Everything is at
tempted, and perhaps we ought to say &C
complshed-after sort. Who does no
know the whole story?
We have too many academies in Vermont
This is one Of the chief reasons why We hav,
60 few good ones. II a County Grammar
School have fund Of $500 or $500, 1t il
divided and subdiyided and frittered away
by act of Legislature until it does no
body any appreciable good. If We coul'
only extinguish two out Of every three
least, and furnish the rest with the needle,
money and students, it would be long stel
in the right direction,-a step backward
indeed, to the wiser policy Of past genera
ton.
But with all our Schools of q nominal,
high grade. we need at least one, perhap
two, good Classical schools; schools, W
mean. which shall make it their special an,
paramount business to fit boys for college
Not that we are disposed to docry science, o.
the so-called practical studies,-not a
all. Not that We think everybody SHOULD
study Latin and Greek, for We do not. w
are decidedly Of opinion that more boys anC
girls are set at these languages than ever fn(
their profit in it. To read a dozen Latir
fables may do young lady no harm; nor
If she 20 no further, can it do her mucl
good, save in the negative way of keeping
her out OF mischief; aud some other study
would have done that just as well, and giyer
her an equal amount of discipline.
But while some students give themselves
chiefly to mathematics and the natural sci
ences, others will devote their time also Il
the ancient languages; and for these it is
right, it is needful, to make special Prov
sion. So long as this Is not done, boys will
be sent 10 Meriden and Easthampton and
Andover 10 get proper preparatory train
ing. And once outside the State, they will
find the current setting away from Vernon;
Colleges to Yale and Harvard and Williams.
/ The friends of the University of Vermont
and of MiddleDury College could. IN our
opinion, do nothing which would inurc more
surely and more quickly to the benefit of
those institutions, than the fostering and
maintaining of distinctively classical schools
of ths highest grade, which should retain
the young men of Vermont within the State
| by Offering as good instruction in the learned