Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1895-03-18
SUPERINTENDENT'S REPORT

third terms of the school year, and
of course, can only report for this pc
riod:
During these terms your eigh
schools have been taught by the fol-
lowing named teachers, viz, I'd term
higher Dept, village school, Miss May
L. Wheeler; intermediate, Miss Myrs
Douglas; primary, Miss Minnie Smith:
Burton Hill, or formerly No. 5, Arthur
Clough; Kidder neighborhood, for
merly No. 4, Miss Alys FL. Parker;
Ware neighborhood, formerly No. z,
Miss Grace A. Beane; Brighton, for
merly No. 10, Mrs. Clara Barrows;
Morrill, Hill, formerly No. 2, Miss Cora
II. Beane. The schools during the
third term have had the same teach
ers with the exception that George S.
Lee has taught the higher department
of the village school and Freeman
Metcalf the school at Brighton.
Ihave during the two terms made
twenty visits, visiting all the schools
during each term al least once, some
more, with the exception that on ac-
count of sickness, 1 failed to visit dur
ing the third term, the school in the
Ware neighborhood. 1 might, in
making this report, spread the usual
amount of ink in stereotyped eompli-
mentary notices of the work of this
or that teacher, but [ confess, that
common as it is, l do not like the
practice. The contract of a teacher
with the town is simply a business
transaction. Teachers are we'll paid
for their work, and paid to do it we'll.
To fulfil their contract is simply to do
their duty, and there is no more need
of fulsomely compiimenting a teacher
by name, because he or she has taught
a successful term of school, than there
is of complimenting the merchant for
giving Is ounces to the pound, or the
shoemaker for making a good pair of
shoes, for which he pockets the cash.
Besides, in this too common custom
of personal complimentary notice,
there is danger of doing actual injus-
tice. One teacher, for instance, may
have an easy, pleasant school, with
we'll disposed and orderly scholars,
parents in sympathy with the teacher
and the circumstances generally pro-
pitious. Another may have school
where all the circumstances are the
direct opposite. One of these, on the
surface, appears a brilliant success,
the other a comparative failure. The
former teacher is highly compliment
ed, and, of course, she and her circle of
friends are pleased, even elated, I'M
less, indeed, they happen to be of
that small minority who practically
understand that even town superin-
tendents sometimes deal in taffy. But
how about the other teacher, with the
less advantageous circumstances and
the, apparently, comparative failure?
She is passed by in "ominous silence"
Her feelings are hurt; her friends
feelings are hurt; her standing as a
teacher is hurt by the evident con-
trast. And yet, taking into account
the circumstances, she may actually
be entitled to higher praise than the
teacher who received the highly COM
plimentary notice. And, it might
even be, that place the former in the
school taught by the latter, with the
same unfavorable circumstances, and
she would have made not merely a
comparative, but an utter and disas-
trous failure.
am happy to be able to say as your
superintendent, not from the compli-
mentary, but the business standpoint,
that according to the best of my judg-
ment, your teachers have done their
duty, filed their contract and fairly
earned their money. 1 do not think
there has been a poorly kept school
in town. ALI have been good; most
have been excellent. The teachers
have themselves been good scholars,
apt to teach, and their methods of in
struction we'll up to the times. The
discipline, too, so far as my eyes and
ears could discern, has been well en-
forced. There were, indeed, in two
or three instances, rumors of some
lack of order. For the investigation
of these rumors I made special visits,
by no means brief ones, using such
powers of observation as I possessed.
Whatever else boys and girls may be,
they are rarely hypocrites, and it is
scarcely likely i'm the nature of things,
that any school which has been ha
bitually disorderly, can suddenly be-
come perfectly orderly, and remain
SO for two or three consecutive hours,
simply because of the awful presence
of the superintendent. Moreover, in
these two of three cases, found that