Connecticut western news., 1900-05-10
THE CORNWALL SCHOOLS.

The NEWS complies with the request to publish the following letter which appeared in the Newtown Bee of April 27th.
 To the Editor of the NEwTowN BEE: I would like little room in your paper to correct few mistakes your West Cornwall man made in regard to the school question in our town. In the first place we will go back to the starting point. In 1891 or 1892 there was spe- cial meeting called to see if we should put two or three districts into one; and that vote was about two to one against meddling with the schools of the town, 10 we heard no more about 1t until '96 at the October meeting. Two or three days after the meeting heard they had con- solidated the schools of the town and Ia. ter found that was not the only one that knew nothing about it. Why was it they did not do as the law directs? As read it, it says that when vote Is taken on consolidation of districts the selectmen shall furnish box for that vote and said box shall be marked con- solidation of districts. There was noth- ing of the kind done in regard to the marking of the box and we challenge any man to say we are not right. Now why was that part left out if not for decep. tion. Had the box been marked then every man would have known the ques- tion. Now think your readers will agree with me when I tell you that thero was only about 50 or 60 votes cast on the matter out of over 300 votes There was not one voter out of four that knew that question was to be voted on, Therefore we claim they have no right to lay a tax on the town to build a schoolhouse at West Cornwall. I ask your readers are not our farms low enough without doing any thing to make them still lower, Take the schoolhouse away who would want to buy your farmsp They tell you the majority are against anything for ed | ucation. They know every word they say in regard to that is not so. We are willing to maintain our districts as our fathers left them to ue, let it cost what it will We have men that do not own a foot of land that are willing to pay aq much for fixing up their scboolbouse as ] tho man that owns his farm, so that his children can be in school. That is the kind of ignorance your West Cornwall correspondent pictures the majority of l Cornwall. We believe it is our duty to make the burden of our little folks as light as we can instead of making them more burdensGme. We claim graded school is grand thing where you have the children to fill them. But where the children are scattered over such vast territory it Is alt gether out of the ques- ton. I never care to live to see our lit- tie folks compelled to walk two or three miles to and from school. Itseems that the two leading ones of this scheme have not child to their name. If they have we know nothing of them.
 have only one more point and then I am done, and that, my readers, is the task he takes up in regard to the condi. | ton of the West Cornwall schoolhouse, and I will leave it to the readers of THE BEE whom the disgrace shall rest on, whether it is the majority of the town, or West Cornwall alone. Bear in mind what that correspondent said in regard to the school houses and also the out. houses. Now, I will say if what he wrote is true that the children had to be moved from one corner to the other tc dodge the raindrops, want to ask you | WnO IS respOn6lDle TOT It, II not the voters of that district and that is not all Oh, to think that in 8 Christian town like this that those poor children should be compelled to sit there in that stench from outhouses, year after year. I say from the bottom of my heart, 1t is a living dis
 grace to all humanity, and if it is true every man in that district should be pros
 ecuted to the full extent of the law, also the health officer of the town. Aud il what he wrote is false then he deserve. nothing less than coat of tar and feath
 CTS. Why have they left such disgract to rest so long? I can see for no othel reason than that they waited for the tims to come when they could make the pool ignorant majority do their work. But we want them to understand we are no
 in that kind of business in 1900 w have one consolation that one year from next October the would be consolidation is up and you will hear good repor
 from the majority of the good old towr of Cornwall. - From One Who Believe
 in the Majority Ruling Every Time.