Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1897-04-16
How an Ohio Town Has Improved on
the District School System.
[From The Springfield Republican. !

Lrrom Inc Springfield RepuOncan.
A letter from Ashtabula, O., to the Chi
cago Record gives an account of a new
school system which is being adopted in
many of the Western Reserve townships,
and which should be of particular interest
to the country towns of New England.
The plan was first adopted in the town of
Kingsyille which was divided formerly into
seven school districts These districts
have now been abolished, and their little
schoolhOuses abandoned, and in their stead
there has been built at the centre of the
town fine two-story brick school-house
where the pupils of the whole town assem-
BILE each day and are divided up into grades
as in the public schools of larger places.
To secure this result free transportation
had to be provided by the town. Bids are
called for each year from private parties to
furnish such transportation in uniformly
built covered spring wagons which seat
about 20 pupils each and which can be
opened in pleasant weather and closed in
stormy. These wagons drive over the
township each school day, picking up the
pupils from the remotest quarters in the
morning and returning them after school
hours. The driver sounds a horn as he
approaches each house and if the scholar
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tardy mark is placed to the pupils account.
So effective is this method in prompting
punctuality that only one case of hardness
is reported from the outlying districts
since the system was established over two
years ago.
The advantages of the plan are stated to
be numerous. 1t is more economical.
Only five teachers are now required where
seven were necessary, and better teachers
can be secured than was possible under the
isolated and ill-adjusted district system.
The grading of the pupils of course permits
of more Efficient school management and
instruction over the old plan where pupils
of all ages and degrees of advancement
were packed into some way-off little school
house and divided up into 20 odd classes,
all trying to study and recite in the same
little room. In place of badly-heated and
badly-ventilated district schoOl-houses,
well-ventilated rooms of more even temp
erature in the one large building are pro-
Vided, and protection from the weather and
wet roads in transportation to and from
school is said to have had a marked effect
on the health of the children. A much
higher average of school attendance has
been secured. And finally it is asserted
that the cost for the whole town of main
tanning the schools has been reduced by
the new system more than one-third. The
transportation is secured at a cost of not
exceeding Sl.05 day for coaches and
drivers.
Not the least among the advantages from
the change is the beneftIafforded the chill
dren of the remote districts by bringing
them into contact with larger and broader
social life and with their fellows in the
central school. There was considerable
objection at first to the change, but today
not parent, child or teacher in the town
would vote to go back to the old district
system. Several towns in that section have
already adopted the plan and many others