Connecticut western news., 1900-05-03
PLAIN FACTS.
The Cornwall Schools are a Town Af- faIr.-The Tax for New Building Would be Less Than a Mill.

school question. The school districts of our town are legally consolidated. The notice of consolidation was plainly and properly in the warning for the an nual town meeting in 1896. The warn- ing was posted as the law requires. If the voters of our town failed to know the object of the vote they must neces- sarily blame themselves and no one else. We feel sure that if some of the persons, who proved themselves so &C., tive in their efforts to defeat the present school projects, had only expended some of their energy at that time, they would have saved themselves their pres- ent anxiety over the burdensome taxa tion which they seem to think is to be fastened upon them. The majority of votes said consolidation" and by so doing. the school districts, which had existed prior to the vote, became merged into unit of representation and the town became the sole owner and the governor of the school property and also the managers of the schools. Today there are no distri .ts and every dollars worth of property owned by them as districts is absolutely vested in the town. Right upon this very ques- ton the Supreme Court of this state de. cided in January last that the vote of consolidation vested the property Tn the municipality without any further act.
 How then is it possible for the village of West Cornwall to build or repair the present schoolhouse when it does not own single cent of title in it? They have no right so to do, nor has any of the old districts the right to expend a single dollar of public money without a vote of the town.
 Progress" again reiterates every fact which he has made heretofore as re- eards the condition of the schools of Cornwall. All he asks is the pure un- adulterated reason of any man of this town to vindicate and substantiate him in the facts that have been related. The facts speak for themselves and if com mittee of the representative men of the state were to investigate the school houses of this town they would neces- sarily come to the conclusion described by Progress.
 The tax necessary to build "palace" Tn this village has been the subject of enormous contention. Examine these facts.
 We have about $550,000 worth of taxable property in our town. The amount of money needed for the con- struction of the schoolhouse would be Sl100; $400 being received for the old one. The clause of the vote proposed read as follows:
 "Voted:-That the selectmen be di- rected to draw three orders on the treas urer, each for one-third of the net cost of such schoolhouse, such orders to be | payable in one, two and three years | from date, and to bear interest at four per cent, the proceeds of which shall | defray the entire expenses of such new schoolhouse. ...
 This would leave to be paid annually by the town the amount of tbree hun dred sixty-six and two-thirds dollars for a period of three years Take your $1100 and divide it by $550, GOO and 1t will give you the rate percent tax upon $1 that this "palace" would cost; which would be two mills on $l for three years. Then divide your two mills by the time, three years, and you get the amount of tax which would have to be laid upon the grand list of the town as the result of building this schoolhouse. and which would be TWO THIRDS OF ONE MILL In other words the tax upon the individual tax payer of the town would be sixty-six and two-thirds cents upon each 5000 of taxable property for the period before mentioned; viz. three years.
 Is it to be wondered at, that "Pro. gress" arraigned the citizens of Corn. wall for taking the course pursued? If our town so selfish that 1t cannot afford to spend the paltry sum needed for 6 decent schoolhouse in the place where
 the largest percentage of children re side. There are at present sixty children in West Cornwall. The
 whole number of children il
 our town on October first, 1899, wa,
 234. The enumeration returned to ths
 State Board last February stated tha
 there were 54 in the 18th school. Sine.
 then number of families have moved
 into the village which increases tn,
 number to 60 or more. The town re
 port of last fall shows that we maintain ; ed in the town II schools. We have
 one-fourth of the school children of oul town in our little school community The remaining three-fourths are scatter
 ed about in nine other school communi
 ties. The average attendance of the
 entire town was 151.8. The attendanc,
 in the West Cornwall schools were 40.; or again more than one-fourth of tn,
 entire average attendance of the school of our town. Yet with this array O
 facts before the townspeople and als, l, the fact that great many of the large
 tax payers of the town reside in this vi cinity, the rural element of Cornwall re ] fused to vote a suitable building. One objection that has been injected
 into this question is that the school house las served all the purposes fo which it has been needed for in th
 past, and particularly the fact that } HAS seated some 30 pupils. This i f true, but in what manner? There wa at one period 60 children crowded int
 this room, which has an actual seatin l capacity of 40. The children had t } bring chairs for seats and the room wa
 crowded to such an extent that it wa , uncomfortable to move about. Tn l work of the teacher was so great tha f the older scholars assisted her in hear l ing a number of the smaller classes al 3 through the term.
 3 There certainly has been crimins
 neglect in the manner in which tn
 schools of our town have been allowe
 to delapidate. but it rests not upon tn
 individual community of West Cornwa