The Portland daily press., 1869-01-02
The Decrease Of Scholars in Maine.
To-, 1st loco

The Decrease OF Scholars in Maine.
AUGUSTA, Jan. LIST, 1869.
To the Editor of the Press:
J By misprint in my letter of Dec. 20, was
made to say in relation to Mr.. Poor's estimates
Gle may be called to indicate the general
correctness of his statement in regard to the
entire population of the State" &C. The man.
uscript read "He may be able to vindicate"
&C., it being my wish and design to credit him
with the full Importance of his plausible con-
lectures. --5++DA =
& 1t was doubtless this apparent audacity on
my part, in presuming to questions for mo-
ment the incontestable accuracy OF his valua
Bile guess-work, that provoked the attempt at
umns yesterday. 1t is indeed to be regretted
that did not have the benefit of his state
ment as amended by the substitution of "over"
for "and," and hasten to do him justice by
making the correction. Here then is the text,
inst as Mr.. Poor would have it, with its SEN
tire pith" and original point"
"The withdrawal OF the principal part of the
b3unty paid to the towns by the State conse-
quent upon the abandonment of the bank tax
and the large increase of taxation required by
recent oyer former laws, have so operated upon
ton is shown to diminish rather than swell the
list of scholars in tie several towns" Now Mr..
Poor knocs very well, and so does every per-
son of common sense, that the essential mean
ing of this statement is precisely the same as
it was before the correction" He knows that
if the increase of taxation required by recent
"over" former laws means anything at all, it
means what Isupposedsit did, the increase re-
quired by the laws of '65 and '68. Now let ms
examine the "entire pith" Of the statement
f,v, a .ol,
is apportioned among the several towns ac-
cording to the school census taken and return
eo annually by the proper town officers; so
that, if there was any temptation on the part
of these officers to return lists at variance with
the truth, it would still be to swell this number
of scholars in order to obtain their full share
of this fund. But no form of taxation for
school purposes is based on the number of
scholars; hence the increase of taxation re-
quired by recent over former laws" can have
no possible connection with the diminution in
the number of scholars as returned annually
by the town. officers. But Mr.. Poor gives us
the "entire pith" in rehash of his former
statement. "What attempted to show" he
says, was that sudden and large increase of
the rate of taxation for school purposes, natur-
ally had the effect in certain localities to
throw the school system in dsfavor, which
with the withdrawal of the bulk of the State
bounty, might serve in the way Of explanation
to account for the apparent deficiency of the
scholars returned" This is precisely what
cannot be true on any principle of human rea-
son or human action Even if taxation were
based on the school census Of each year, as Mr..
Poor evidently assured, the returns themselves
will destroy his theory, for the decrease has
been gradual and annual since 1860, the largest
decrease being in 1854 just prior to the increase
of taxation by the law of 1866. 1t has already
been shown that the alarming result indicated
by the returns is entirely consistent with uni
form observation, and with natual differences
in consideration of the war, increased expenses
OF living, small families, social evils, Sc
had no petty ambition to "achieve vieto-
ry" by reason of the mistake or inadvertency
of Mr.. Poor, but nodestly pointed out the error
committed by him, in order that the public
might be undeceived. 1t is not reasonable that
the public should be required to believe that
over four hundred boards of town officers, by
a strange coincidence, or equally strange collu-
sion, have for eight years been persistently
falsifying their official oaths, for no conceivable
purpose, but "out of pure cussedness." 1t
would not have detracted from the greatness
of Mr.. Poor, or materially impaired his useful
ness, if he had frankly acknowledged his error,
instead of resorting to a subterfuge.