Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1876-04-21

/ oInclai heau ana uleu yearllhg, cohse-
quently the schools, especially the win
ter terms, have been cheap, very cheap
in every sense; no qualified teacher of
experience could be engaged at the prices
paid, or to use the language of the most
efficient opponent of consolidation, ut
tered at the last school meeting, "no
decent teacher will come into the school,"
yet to support these schools the taxes of
the district have been burdensome, av-
eraging nearly 40 per cent of the grand
list, the grand list of 1875 being two
hundred and seventeen dollars. AS re-
CARDS the prospects for the future, there
are but four scholars in the district who
will attend school during the coming
summer, and but ten, and probably but
eight, who will attend the winter school
should the district be restored, and the
indications are not bright that the num-
Der of scholars will be materially in
creased in the near future. On the 9TH
err hand at the village there is graded
school of two grades, open during thirty
weeks of the year. Wages sufficient to
secure good teachers are paid and the
school, especially the higher grade, has
for the past few years been success.
Several children from district No. 3
have attended the high school during a
portion of the past year. The grand
list of the village district for 1875 was
1859, or more than seven times that of
No 3, so that No. 2 mights assess tax
of 500 with the per cent less than it
would be in No. 8 with tax of 500,
and with the addition of the grand list
of the newly annexed districts the rate
per cent of tax will be still less, so that
the consolidation of the several districts
will lessen the burden of taxation as
well as increase the benefits of the
schools.
A judicious parent who wishes to give
his children a good education but who
from want of pecuniary means is barred
from sending them away from home,
would pay much higher price for any
farm in district No with the districts
consolidated than he would with them
separate, and he could well afford to do
so, for with school in No. 8 he must
pay heavy tax yearly for the support
OF the cheapest kind of schools, and
then either let his children remain in
comparative ignorance or educate them
elsewhere at heavy expense, while with
the districts consolidated his children
could have the advantages of graded
school at no higher cost than those of
the inferior schools of No. 3. Thus, in
stead of real estate being worth less
there is every reason to suppose that it
would be worth more. Indeed, every
thinking man must concur when it is
affirmed that while we have groaned
under the highest of taxes and suffered
under the poorest of schools, with, under
the old arrangement, no hope of a
change except for the worse, the consol-
idation of the districts must affect the
value of real estate for the better.
The second objection, Wis: that small
children will be deprived of their school
privileges on account of the great dis
lance from school, is much more serious
in anticipation that it will be found to
be in practice.
Every one has an instance in mind,
where family has resided at a long
distance from school, whose children
were punctual and their attachments as
good or better, than the average. ANY
active healthy child, 10 years of age,
can walk five or six miles per day dur
ing the summer or fall terms, and il
were better to allow child to remain
entirely away from school until of that
age, learning what little he can at home.
and then avail himself of the advanta-
ges of graded school, even if three
miles distant, during the remainder of
his school age, then to spend the whole
of his school life in such schools as are
provided in district No. 3.
Another consideration which should.
other things being equal, influence the
vote of the town, is this, the more con-
solidation there is of districts the better
it will be for those districts that remain.
One half of the public school money is
divided equally among the several dis
tricts without regard to the number or
attendance of the scholars. At the
last division this money was divided
among ten districts, at the next division
if the districts remain as at present there
will be but eight, SO that the amount of
money which each district will be en-.
titled to, will be considerably increased |
1t is true that vote was passed at the
last annual town meeting, giving to the
village district the distributive shares of
such districts as might thereafter he |