Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1882-10-30
SCHOOL SUPERVISION.

Senator Howard has a bill before
the legislature to substitute the town
for the district system of schools.
Those conversant with the practical
working of the district saytem, and
consequently best qualified to judge,
declare Enthusiastically in favor of the
town system. 1t is natural that peo-
pie in sparsely-settled communities
should be jealous of their rights and
privileges. and zealously oppose any
attempt to deprive them Of such
privileges; but to adhere to the dis
trict system is to keep in force the
plan governing schools when commu-
mites and schools were differently
constituted than now, which plan has
been outgrown as surely as the rail-
road has superseded the cumbersome
stage-coach. The public school sys-
tenn is far from being perfect, but
there has been great improvement in
education since the days when ''read-
ing, writing and 'rithmetic'' was all
that one needed to know to consti-
tute his education.
Under the district system incompe-
font nffon nhocoro .c4, 1a4
committees, who hire equally incom-
petent teachers-some of their rela-
lions usually-at salaries which their
merits would not command where re-
lationship was not an important con-
sideration. This plan has begotton
numerous quarrels in school districts,
where the offended clique has with
drawn their children from school,
and the school has been made to suf-
fer.
Under the town system, the schools
beng under the immediate supervis-
ion of the school committee, men of
judgment, ability and education,
these local quarrels and jealousies
are avoided, better teachers are OBJ
tanned, who are engaged on their
merits, the salaries throughout the
town are made uniform according to
the grade and size of the school and
if there is a school of a higher grade
in town, the scholars in the outlying
districts are so instructed that when
they pass from these schools they
are we'll qualified to enter the higher.
grade school.
No one who looks into the com
parative merits of the two systems
can fail to see the superiority of the
town over the district system, and i
is a noteworthy fact that those wht
have been directly connected will
schools and have had enlarged op
portunities for observation are al
most universally in favor of the tow
system.-Caledonidn.
A Washington correspondent o
the Hartford Times relates the fol
} lowing: II was going through tn
basement of a public building seyera
days since, when an official directed
my attention to an old man who
| employed looking after the engin
) that runs the elevator. That man
{ said he, 'once was prominent as
5 member of the house of representa-
/ tives. Afterward he was lieutenant
governor of his state. Then he wa
/ returned to congress. During th
+; war no member did more to get larg
S appropriations for soldiers, and b
e had probably more connection tina
5 any other one man with the preser
0 internal revenue laws, the repeale
b income tax laws. We could ha,
S made millions when the tax was pl
e on whisky, but he did not, for |
e was in the secret. To shorten Il
/ thing up, he drank himself out {
= congress and all the way down
IS this cellar. Here he receives s.
r. per month as substitute for the re
d ular engineer. He is allowed to he
t. in the basement here