Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1877-09-10
LARGE VS.. SMALL SCHOOLS.

iii SAe becomes a woman, realizes IN
any sense what it is to be member of
community, misses part of her edu-
cation which would have saved her af-
terward from much embarrassment and
trouble. In school, for the first time
in her life the little girl finds herself
member of class of equals, whose rights
she must respect, and who must respect
hers. She finds herself also in relation
to classes of interiors and to classes of
superiors, and their distinctions are not
based on any external conditions, any
advantages of wealth or social position,
but on conduct, requirements, and dis
cipline. When she looks down, she is
encouraged by seeing that she had made
some progress in self-goyernment and
knowledge; when she looks up she rec
ognizes that the fields of character and
knowledge rise terrace-like above her
present level, and she does not grow
conceited, but modest. In a word, she
learns to know herself and find her own
level. Goeth's Three Reverences are
taught her without words, and her de-
gree of culture is marked by an impair
tial hand. To form a community, all
sorts of people must combine. Emerson's
squirrel taught good lesson when he
said
"All sorts of things and weather
Must be taken in together
To make up year
And sphere;"
and it is certain that we can have no
roundness of developement in schools or
individual characters in a cluster of peo-
pie that is too small to afford US every
variety of formative influences.
have in mind now a little girl of
ten, who in small school or in class
Of two or three would be perpetual
torment, careless and listless, but who
is actually so borne oiong by une Iunu-
s-~s W On0 1oSS vr n0I CLASS UnaU sne is
being forced to be docile, care-taking,
and attentive, and all this with scarcely
word from her teachers. The current
of earnest and honest work is too strong
for her to stem, and a few years of this
steady influence will develop her into a
fine woman.
The only reason that 1 have ever
heard assigned for the potential superi.
ority of small schools over large is, that
in them each pupil can have a larger
share of the teachers attention and su-
pervision. But this theory is based
upon mechanical estimate of the force
of character and intellectual power. One
might as we'll say that small families
were better than large for the children
because one-half mothers love was
more than one-seventh of the same. The
truth is that the moral and intellectual
influence of G teacher, like the love of a
mother or any spiritual force, is not
subject to the laws of mathematics, nor
can it be expressed in figures, with the
number of the pupils as the denomina.
tor of the fraction. Rather it is indef
nitely multiplied by the increase of its
objects, as in the mothers love or the
fathers care.
To the educator every child under
her training is distinct an individual
as is every one of the hundred patients
who claim the physicians care. Because
he administers quinine to one who need
it, he does not administer it to the next
An educator before his instrument, NJ
two keys of which give forth the sam
sound, or can be mistaken the one fo
the other; only with this difference
that the keys shv touohoe gives fortl
sound of their own, and not one tina
has been given them, and they are cap
able of improvement and development
If they need tuning, she knows how t
do it; she softens or stirs them up a
her will, and from them all calls fort
not only melody, but harmony, wit
which each key grows capable of NOR
individual action. To such maste
should there be given On instrument {
two, or of seven octaves?
In what l have said l have, of cours,
: been speaking only Of good schools, fc
,, these are the only kind that is necessar
to consider. No parent would send
daughter to school. large or small
which he did not consider good, or will
out sufficient testimony to substantia
his wisdom in the choice. To compal
poor school which was large with
small one that was good would be ;
absurd as the attempt of Spenser's gial
to weigh the right against the wron
After all, the main question is not Il
size but the excellence of the schoc
But between good school which
:, small the advantage to the pupil is
= every way indisputably on the side
I, the large one.-Arna @. Bracket,
Harper's Magazine for September.
J, The blessing of house is piety. Il
II honor of a house is hospitality. T
Lo.. g; oJoocI;oo., V