The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-09-26
IN WALLTNGF GFORD.
Town School System ys. District School
 System.

Town School System vs. District School
 System.
 (Communicated)
 It is greatly to be hoped that at the coming town meeting Wallingford will be added to the list of towns which have decided to change from the dis trict system to the town system of management of public schools. The ad- vantages of the town system are many and important. They have been set forth in detail in the circular sent to the citizens by the state board of education, who strongly urge it's adoption.
 The district system was well fitted to meet the conditions for which it was planned The people here were for the most part farmers rather thinly, scat tered over the country. The schools were of necessity small, employing but a single teacher. The range of subjects was narrow, the aim of the school being simply to teach the children to read and write, and to keep their accounts, and but little else was thought necessary to fit them for the comparatively simple life of that time.
 Since then there has been an immense change in the life of the community. Farming has given place to manufac- turing The population has increased and become centralized. Those who have stuck to farming have been obliged to meet new conditions due to the development of farming in the west and success in farming now, as in man. ufacturing, must come through keen in- telligence, readiness of resource and progressive methods. Life, in word, has become more complex, and with the greater demand that is made of the cit izen, has come the broadening and 1engthening of the school course that is to help the citizen to satisfy these de- mands. The manufacturing industry has brought with it large addition to our population of foreign origin, and the task of assimilating this and bringing 1t into sympathetic relations with those of native descent devolves upon the public schools and increases their re- sponsibility.
 The district system of management is mot fitted for the schools as they now are. and as they will continue to be in the near future. The standardization of the population has often brought the wealth of town within the limits of a single district, as it has in Wallingford, and the result has been to provide the children of that district with all the ad- yantages of modern city school, while the rest of the town has had to get along with the same schools they had eighty or ninety years ago.
 finder town management all children in the town have equal advantages.
 Schools as they now are, with the notifications that are going on in the grammar grades, require energetic and efficient, even expert management, This cannot be had in the highest de- gree when the duties and powers are di- ,ided between two different boards as fhev are under the district system. The advantages of a single governing board are obvious, The town system is more economical, too. All school materials are now supplied by the community, and if is economical to buy them in ouantfty. In many cases single arti- cIe may be used perfectly well in seve- Ta1 schools; and by increasing the num- Der of schools making use of such appli- ances there is a saving of expense. The services of a teacher of music or of draWine, can be extended over several schools in the same way, and so also the superintendent of schools. Economy may come in other ways beside from the bringing of all the schools under one