The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1884-11-19
A RejOinder.

A correspondent puts in somewhat
prickly rejoinder to some comments we
recently made on former letter from
him upon the town school system. We
do not deny that the school board,
under the present optional law, has all
the discretionary power--or absolute
power" as our correspondent is fond
of phrasing 1.-THE law gives selectmen,
no more, no less; and a school board
will be just as likely, or perhaps less
likely, to abuse its powers as board of
selectmen. AS matter of strict fact,
the law that says that selectmen shall
lay out, alter or discontinue the high
ways in town, as the convenience or
best good of the inhabitants requires, is
as "absolute as the section of the
school law prescribing the powers of
the board of directors. In the exercise
of the purely discretionary or "abso-
lutte" powers confded to them any
board of selectmen could, if they were
wickedly disposed or if they were in
competent or self-willed, bankrupt the
town. So could the governor embroil
and embarrass the state, or the president
the nation. But words need not be
multiplied on this point. If our friend,
and others like him, have only fear of
absolutism in the powers conferred
upon school board to disturb them, a
word will remedy the difficulty. 1t is
an easy thing to so amend the law as
to interpose check upon high-handed
proceedings and guard against incon-
ceivable lunacy in the discharge of their
duties by school directors. We are
aware that some towns have voted adj
versely on the question of the adoption
of the town system under the present
local-option law, but that fact is by no
means conclusive as to the real senti-
ments of the people or the merits of
the system. Does any intelligent man
believe that if the legislature of 1880
had made the adoption of the "act to
equalize taxation" optional, one town
in fifty could have been persuaded
to adopt it? Is it not fact, well known,
that the members who " dared to vote
for that measure went home with fear
and trembling to face their angry con-
stituents, and that it required the COM
bined efforts of the newspapers which
sustained the law and its friends
everywhere to breast and conciliate
the tide of opposition? Such are
the indisputable facts. People at
town meetings, as rule, give neither
time nor effort to the understanding of
the town system. 1t is not understood |
to-day by the people at large, but it is
a fact that every intelligent, unpreju-
diced, well-informed man or woman,
the best element in every community,
is in favor of this system. Again, many |
people are sincerely in favor of the sys-
tenn but will not vote to adopt it under
the present law, because in towns where |
public sentiment is evenly balanced it |
is practically voting to establish town
quarrel for five years. We know of
towns that have adopted the system in
which the majority has for five years
encountered factional opposition that
has nursed its belligerent feelings for
another " set-to" when the five years
of trial which the law provides shall
have ended. This factiousness has ul-
timately and invariably been largely
won over to conviction by the irresis-
tible logic of practical experience, but
it is not pleasant thing to introduce
into town and neighborhood counsels,
and it greatly hinders fair trial of the
system and impairs the efficiency of the
schools. Others will not vote for it on
account of well-known difficulties and
embarra0nents arising, through frac-
tional districts, from adjoining towns
which still cling to the district system.
If the town system were made the law
of the state, opposition, or ground for
opposition, would end, the system would
have a fair trial, and as surely and
quickly win its way to popularity and
success as did the listing law of 1880, and
as has the town system itself in towns
which have tried it five or ten years
and re-adopted it, despite the en-
barrassments its optional character Gre
ates, by unanimous or practically unani-
nous votes. We know the law requires
the districts to have at least twenty
weeks school in a year. The town sys-
tenn so far from abrogating that re-
quirement leaves it in full force. More
than this,-it has given to the poorer
districts more weeks of school, better
teachers, improved school-houses, fur
niture and apparatus, all the advantages
the rich districts enjoy at no greater,
and in some instances for less, money
than under the district system they paid
for meaner advantages and the mini
mum number of weeks of school the
law allows. And more than this,-it
has buried the spook which inspires
mortal terror in our correspondent.