Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1905-10-27

and Sc turday forenoon.
The teachers convention was opened
with an address of welcome by Mayor
JAS. p. Baxter and a greeting Of the
teachers of Maine by His Excellency,
Gov. William T. Cobb. The responsegk
Gov. VIM. r. Cobb. The response was
by State Supt. of Schools w. w. Stet-
son who also read a paper on Rural
Communities and Centers of Popula-
ton.
Mr.. Stctson said:
The rural community trains and
sends to the city much of its best
brains, power of initiative and capacity
for service. The record shows that a
small fraction Of the young people who
graduate from the secondary schools or
colleges continue in the towns in which
they were born. Few appreciate the
drain in money and vigor thus made
on these sections. 1t is evident
that by this process these neighbour
hoods are losing not a small portion of
their most valuable and expensive
product. The boys and girls thus born
and prepared at great sacrifice for
their work, fill more than their quota
of the commanding places in the CEN
ters of population. Statistics furnish
the revelation that the strength of the
cities comes from the hills. They are
the sources from which are drawn
those qualities without which no city
can maintain its prestige for a genera
ton. The total of the leaders in the
professions, in business and public
careers having this heritage is too large
to leave the facts in controversy. In
the metropolis Of New England, as
we'll as in the largest city of the Union,
this proportion exceeds eighty in each
one hundred persons of recognized
ability.
No argument is needed to Demon
strate that the usefulness of the popu-
lation added to any community is
limited by the extent and quality of its
education. 1t is equally true that the
value of those who remain in the cOun-
try is dependent upon the same factor.
Education measures the effort, the
productiveness and the consuming
power of a people.
The smaller communities have fairly
earned a right to look to any city for
evidence in deciding on the merits of
old and new schemes of procedure, not
only in the schools, but in other lines in
which the city has occasion to make
tests for its own benefit.
That city system of schools which is
not quietly and judiciously making ex-
periments is dead, and the sooner it is
buried by so much better condition of
affairs is assured. These centerS are
justly held responsible for making
such Investigations as will result in i'm
proved methods and helpful devices,
and at the same time proving the
worth of plans now in use and those
presented for acceptance. This work
belongs to urban communities, and if
it is not performed, the results are soon
manifest in their own schools and to
them will come the punishment Incl
dent to a failure to do their duty by
those who turn to them for light and
guidance.
When once a center of population
realizes that to insure its own develop
ment it must be prepared to serve, not
only its own people. but those on whom
it must depend for its commercial and
Industrial progress, then it will give to
lIlOSc ItIuOleT regions the pest the age
affords to the end that it may receive
the best the country can produce. Any
one familiar with the estimate rural
PEOPLE place upon education knows
that trade and residence follow the
school.
The town of Greene is not expected
to furnish a superintendent of schools
| who is an adept in matters educational.
The funds available and the work to be
performed prohibit the employment of
such person and make it impossible
| Tor this community to provide an
| officer versed in methods of instruction
or an authority on matters of admins
| tration.
The city of Auburn owes il not only
10 Itself, but to the communities from
| which 1t draws its population and upon
| which 1t depends for its commercial
and industrial support, to emnloy a
man who knows the latest and hest
thought concerning schools. He must
be an expert and his labors and helm.
fitness must be as far-reaching as the
city he represents desires to extend its
influence and trade. 1t is his d,,t1, 70
Continued on Papa co