Lamoille newsdealer. [volume] (Hyde Park, Vt.) 1860-1877, 1872-04-10

Paying Too Much for a Whistle.

Let Us see how fast we are prOgressir
Al under the presen, pet system.
Blot out oil school statutes for the pa
twenty-five years and what would We q
in our little districts ? tours is 4 fair sau
pie or the majority Of Vermont summC
sohOOls) Why, We should 60 directly an
n hire Biddy Nc Flynn, a nice little girl q
o fourteen, but with more real womauly dig
: ritY than a half dozen State manufacture
D teachers. We could get her for two do
lars a week, she boarding herself, aroun,
with us as she chose T; and all the term shr
would be learning what would be of NOR,
: real use TO her than even the lessons Of /,
Normal school; and we verify believe tina
even Agassiz, with all his knowledge. could
d. no more for our dozen llitle ones than
B.ddy can.
She would guard health and morals,
and she would have our hearty co-opera-
ton in governing. That it is not the most
learned who make the best teachers, our
Board of Education unwittingly inform us
for in their thirteenth Annual School Re-
port, page 80, they say that pupils 10 the
Practice schools, taught by pupil teachers
stood higher on examination than in any
other school.
But after a quarter Of century of en-
acting and re-cDacting school laws how
will we p o,ced now +? Why, for fear an
other district will get our moiety of the
public money, we will hire a Normal
School graduate or some one who can an.
swer a certain number of questions, and
for thus ansV ering is taken kindly under
State protection. Then we must pay four
dollars per week, and two more for board
Of course a knowledge of her pupils or
their surroundings is quite supcrAuous to
her. She is Of State make up, and her pu-
pills must be cut after the same pattern.
Do we love her? Do we take her to
'ur homes and hearts? No, indeed We
hink of the heavy tax that will sorely
us to pay, and We are ready to
nd fault with everything she does; so ,
set her up for a target on which to 4,
went the venom of our Spleen" and be- :
Dre the term is half finished, We find her /.
roaming over her desk, only three pupils 9
l the room, discouraged, disguised with n
and school teaching, and wishing some +
oh man would come and marry her, thus q
one poor victim ofState Protec- 9
on. All, but there is a bright side to the a
Icture, the register is beautifully kept 4
he had nothing else TO do,) and State =
is gratifed, but we say and our chill \
rem will feel that we have ''paid too W
ear for the whistle .,
One writer, thinking he had discovered =,
e cause of all the trouble, says we must
more children to school as they did b,
'enty five years ago. (See 18th, Annual ~
eport, 1869 | ask what inducement h;
there for us TO raise children. if the =
ate is to step in as soon as they begin to ~
about, and claim them as its own -,
iering us to do thus and so by them yet to
lvlng us to pay all the bills? H.
We 60 to Institutes, and there we fnd II.
'ystem of teaching unfolded, charming -
old and young, to all except a class of o.,
se State manufactured teachers, who W;
even hired to 60 there and listen,-- no
money paying them fifty cents or more tn
day, and there they sit and whisper tbc
glggle, in the midst of the most intel ho,
mt instruction and even a Rev. is obli-
to pause in his remarks and administer
eserved reproof. We visit their school
and there find the routine of 25 r,
ago stripped of all its life and inter.
a bare skeleton. y,
u-,I bod
teacher made by nature neither asks
needs protection. Our State NAV
gained the name o fboing very active
he subject Of Education, but less ac.
would be better for us, and for the :,
lral teacher also.
s,,,v Ga, the