Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1886-08-20

JAMGSs bO MNIAHUOINE Eli, j.
OF AUGUSTA.
s IN EMINENT EDUCATOR FALL
EN- BEHIND.
I Some in remote counties may complain of the
schools should be multiplied. This may be SO;
but the State of Virginia has but one Normal
School for whites; and the decisive rebuff
given by the last legislature to the proposition
to establish second shows that the Farm
vile School is the only place where profess
sional education, either now or at any time in
the near future, can be had by teachers No
doubt this school will first be endowed and
equipped to the full extent of its wants before
any other school of the kind will be seriously
thought of. The State has but one University,
but one Military Institute, but one Agricultural
and Mechanical College, and but one white and
one colored Normal School. One really supe-
rior institution is worth more than a score of
poorly taught and poorly supported schools.
And if the State were covered with these fee
BILE Normal Schools, the most needy teacher
would do well to pass the whole of them in
order to reach really good school.-Dr. Buff
ner in the Educational Journal for July.
If the above is the deliberate and well con-
sidered idea of the scope of Normal instruc-
tion in Virginia, entertained by DR..
Ruffner, then he has fallen behind the
times, and his days Of usefulness in the
cause in which his name was once promi-
nent, are number ed. A decisive rebuff
to movement made on parallel line
nth the broadening mind and advancing
81 ought of the country 'tshows" little. and
est of all, does it show that grand and
inefficient project grounded in the intelli-
& garfed into local school. If the rebuff
b5 the last legislature showed that ''the
Farmville school is the only place where a
@fessional education, either now or at
aoy time in the near future can be had by
5eachers,' then the constituencies of those
a8lnot reach "the only placer and have
e keep their children at home, had better
os lin inquiring into it at once. And DR..
finer and those legislators may feel per
tiy certain that the inquiry will be an, an
!sssaassDon and kept up untilksa .m more salts.
Fsstory reason thar ~a he has been able to
ri 7e shall be obtained. Let us see how just
is the complaint of ''some in remote coun-
lies who complain of the distance to Farm
vj.ie." The Tidewater counties have IS
pr pills at the Farmville school. The Mid
lad counties which are entitled to % pu-
Dis have sixty-one, and of these sixty-one,
enty-two are from Prince Edward. The
pisdmont counties which are entitled to
l8 pupils only have 10. The great Valley
81 mites which are entitled to 10 pupils
anly have S. The Appalachian counties
w.]ich are entitled to 10 pupils only have 1.
IhaBlue Ridge counties which are entitled
Go 3pupils have none, and the Trans-Apa-
hian counties which are entitled to 8
NJ. re- none. Could there be any stronger
Ing than this to the complaint that a
land scheme of State education for
which the whole people are taxed is shrivel.
ied into a neigborhood school.
This local feature is all the more domi-
na5 ing when we come to read the cata-
-.40gue Of the State Female Normal School
*av the second session of 1856. We find
g a matter of fact. that of the 172 pupils
- y GA little more than one-half, are
Lt!ere to become teachers. Of the rest, 80
are little children of the neighborhood who
g9cm the Model school on which the young
Gsachers practice-and which is an excel
lerst school against which we have nothing
10 say; but the still remaining SO pupils in
h Preparatory school have no business
30 re. That Department is simply local
81 "a School kept up by the State for the
5saeft of the town of Farmville and to
tae disadvantage of private enterprise.
The Capitalization system which DR..
aAfner advocates is not to be tolerated
b. he State at large. To call normal
6gacatlon free which is cooped up in one
eqgaer of the Commonwealth, is mock
cry, There is no explanation to be given
fok the fact that the Southside counties
which surround Farmville have So pupils
tinatead Of the % they are entitled toy and
all the. rest of the State combined has only
"a, except that Farmville is accessible to
these counties and inaccessible to the rest
Of The Commonwealth. There is no other
explanation that can be given of this start
ling discrepancy in numbers. Every por-
tion of the State has young girls eager for
Normal education, but the distance, cost,
and inaccessibility intervenes. When the
bill was offered in the last legislature for
iother Normal its decisive rebuff, ;"
meaning its failure, was wholly owing to
the eagerness with which every section OF
she Commonwealth put forward its claim
TO have it there. Competition destroyed it's
chances, and not as DR.. Ruffner supposes,
because there was any disposition to &C
quiesce in the theory that as there
was but one University and one Military
Institute, there should also be but Que
Female Normal School 'sOne really
superior institution" may have its advan-
ssges, but when that superior institution
is TOO far away for the people to use it
those advantages are confined. as with the
Farmville Normal, chiefly to a section,
aud the rest of the State is as little bene-
Gted by it as if itt.was the most inferior
that could be devised. The Public School
system of Virginia never contemplated