Bennington semi-weekly banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 1894-1902, 1894-11-30
Enlarged School Facilities.

BENNING ron, VT, Dec. 1st, 1894.
Evidently Bennington Graded School
District will before long have to consider
the question of more school room for our
children. Already we are overcrowded,
and year or more of increase to our
village will render it impossible to ac-
cOmmodate all of our children in our
present school building. Our electric
road also will add very largely to our
nonresident pupils, if we can accommo-
date them. The question comes up wheth-
er to enlarge our present building, or to
build smaller school houses on the out
skirts of our village, to accommodate
the primary and perhaps lower grammar
scholars. There are some advantages,
no doubt, in having our schools under
one roof, yet in the history of all coun-
try towns of the size of ours, or a little
larger, it has been found impracticable,
or at least undesirable, to crowd much
more than seven or eight hundred schol-
ars under one roof. and like North
Adams and other towns, we shall of ne
cessity, before many years, be obliged to
seek school room on the outskirts of our
village. Even now it seems to me that
small scholars would be better accom-
modated with school rooms near their
homes, than to walk long distances to
and from school in all weathers. 1t oc-
ours to me that the experiment of pro-
viding school rooms by hire, outside of
our present building, would at least be
safe experiment, and if found successful
in accommodating the scholars, which
there is no reason to doubt, then at our
leisure, school buildings could be put up
as needed.
Among the advantages of such a
course would be In building and adding
to the attractions of every part of our
tlourishing village. If however it should
be thought desirable for the present, to
build on the lot we now own, we ought
not to think of tempOrizing, as has been
suggested, by putting up cheap wooden
buildings, with one or two school rooms,
eventually to sell to be moved off, and
then add to our main building. If we
are to build at at all on our present
school lot, to me it is unquestOinably
best that we build an addition to our
school house, in the same architectural
style, to the east, making it part there
of. The original design was made pur-
posely so that such additions could be
made without marring the present splen-
did architectural effect; in which case
we should make an addition which
should add at least six new school
rooms, two or three of which would be
occupied Immediately on completion.
Yet [ believe that the better policy
would be to scatter our school houses as
before said, in various parts of our viii
lage. OF course there is little more
expense in heating and janitOr attention,
but then on the other hand, the expense ,
of building two or more wooden build |
ings, neat and comfortable, would prob
ably be less than making the more per-
manent and expensive additions men
toned. We could hardly expect to
make an addition to our present build
ing, as it should be made, for less than
$4,000, and half of that, no doubt,
would put up three suitable buildings on
the outskirts, each furnishing two
school rooms. OF course, personally