St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1889-02-28
sUPERINTENDENTvs REPORT.

4he III lhS past NSdI
To the men and women of St.
Johnsbury i am very glad to offer
you a report of our schools for the
year 1SSS-S9. Schools have been
supported in all districts for as many
weeks as the law requires, and in
nearly all for a longer time. l wish
it were in my power to offer report
uniformly flatterin9 and full of en-
couragement. The school buildings,
with one exception, are in good re-
pair, light, tidy and well warmed.
But the schOOlhOuses in the small
districts are miserably provided with
blackboards, and, although the
Union district is continually increas-
ing its supply Of helpful apparatus,
the schools are all more or less de-
tlclent in maps, charts and blocks,
those valuable aids to good teacher.
AS a school committee myself have
often felt ashamed when noticing the
amount of such material that some
teachers have collected, often at con-
siderable expense to themselves.
have, however, seen a few cases,
where the school committee has
|
purchases.
In speaking of the schools will di-
vide them into two classes, the
smaller district schools and the
larger ones of Summerville and the
| Union district. In the first the teach
ers are of very unequal calibre. An
abundance of excellent, natural abil-
ityis offered, but the need of training
is in many cases very striking. While
no normal school can supply the pc
culiar skill that comes from years of
teaching, it can do this. A girl in
any good normal school learns that
| teaching as a science rests upon GER
tain general principles and as an art
is never perfected save by a knowl-
edge of those principles. When a
teacher has natural ability, time sup
plies this knowledge, but the dis
tricts that hire youth and ignorance
| furnish this experience at dear cost
| to themselves.
There are, however, in these schools
teachers who always give me a feel
| ing of admiration as something noble
and heroic. They are like devoted
missionaries, patient, cheerful, brave,
working for the meanest pittance and,
as far as | can see, with very little
sympathy and support from their
surroundings. One of them, who
has taught for years in St. .Johnsbury
and the neighboring towns, said to
me: II have in my life, too often felt
that l was the only person, who had
| any interest in the children" Among
these teachers l have found some of
very marked skill. Two of them, l
am very sorry to say, have been
tempted into neighboring towns by
higher wages. The value of the work
in these schools has been seriously
impaired by frequent changes ofteach-
ers. In justice to the various school
committees, l must say l have never
known a case in which the changes
were in any way the fault of those
officers. In most cases they have re-
tanned the same teachers when posi-
ble
The Temperance Physiology has
been taught with a fidelity that must
make glad the hearts of its advocates.
A superficial observer might be par
doned for thinking nothing else was
taught. The text books deserve
some criticism, especially the "Hy-
giene for Young People" The open
ing pages in particular present an
amusing confusion of bacteria, spores
and alcohol. In many places three
pages will hardly contain as many
facts to be impressed on a child's
mind. l find the temperance
teaching has already produced
e
scientious teachers. They feel that
so much harping on one subject may
produce the very evil they wish to
avoid.
The same problem in connection
with these district schools presents
itself in st. Johnsbury as in all the
sparsely settled portions of the New
England states. Here the schools
barely keep up the old standard,
while in the large towns and villages
they are continually improving. I'm
der the incoming system of super
vision the greatest difficulties will be
in these schools. The graded schools
will, in a certain sense, care for them
selves, but these smaller ones will
need great deal of help.
Our graded schools show very
plainly the tendency of both church
and school to take the child out of
the parents hand and put him under
the influence of their institutions,
thus throwing his training more and
more upon the state. This works
well if the school is what it should
be. The higher our civilization be-
comes the more every form of it tends
to complicated institutions. A child
trained in such a schools better fitted
for the worlds work than one who
has not been. 1t is the nearest ap-
prOach to the order outside that edu-
Gators have found possible. 1t re-
sembles in its regularity and system
the complicated movement of trade,
manufacture and government into
which he will be thrown in his young
manhood. The young teacher who
goes into a graded school finds all at
once that she is doing better work
than she ever imagined she could do,
that every teacher in the building is
a help to her, and that the regular
course of study and the general sys-
tenn are aids instead of hindrances.
But when we reach the small district
school, every phrase of the problem
is changed. 1t is like attempting to
make proftably by hand an article
which the great factories are turning
out by machinery. There are not
scholars enough to develop the health
full spirit of rivalry, the schools are
little too short, the teachers change
too often. An attempt to impose a
rigorous course of study would pre-
sent great difficulties and would be
of very doubtful advantage The