Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1910-10-14
MIDDLEBURY APPEALS TO
j. 80 LEGISLATURE. ~ = nI

are now enrolled, a sited company of the youth our State
needs for the leaders of the future.
1t is not the policy of the College to run in debt, and
l have turned in every direction for money to meet the
added burden. Our Alumni have responded nobly, and
in two years they have raised, with the help of a few
friends from outside, a fund Of 500, 900 and nearly
$13S,ooo toward a second fund Of $500, 900. The first
was accomplished through the impetus of a conditional
offer of $4,000 from DR.. D. K. Pearsons, the honored
native of Our State who has become a national benefactor
of small colleges. The second fund was begun by the
endorsement of the General Education Board, an organi-
cation whose knowledge of educational affairs is most
thorough, and whose approval is the testimony Of highest
experts that our College is urgently needed and destined
to endure.
The money thus secured, largely helpful though it
will prove, is entirely inadequate for the work we ought
Immediately to do. Standing on the height of our mag
ni6cent new 34-acre campus, the gift of Hon. Joseph
Battell, a leader in American education said to me, C You
ought to have 81, 900, 900 for the development of this
College ~ This man was no partisan admirer of our
particular College, but a close student Of educational con-
ditions in our State and in the nation, and his remark
was motived by the interests of Vermont and of America,
not by personal feeling for Middlebury.
It is not possible that a need and opportunity so
urgent and inspiring will be altogether unheeded, but in
addition to all that may be hoped from individual donors
there is work that is eminently proper for the State to
assume. Every one admits that instruction in Domestic
Science and the Household Arts and in Manual Training
ought to be introduced into our high schools. By its
offer of State aid to schools which introduce these sub
iects, the State has committed itself to this advance step.
Through the inpetus, impaired by the establishment of a
department of teacher training, a large proportion of our
graduates are engaged in teaching. For the preparation
Of teachers in these practical branches, college instructors
and additional laboratory facilities are imperative. The
Teachers College of Columbia University has recently
been supplied with a building costing a half million dol
lars for teacher training in Household Arts, Domestic
Science Metal and Wood WORKING. At ALBANY the
State of New York has erected a $500, 900 building for
the training OF high school teachers and has pledged itself
to the maintenance of its work. Vermont has nothing
paralleling these foundations except our modest Depart
ment of Pedagogy, established two years ago. We can
make a dollar go very much farther than a great University
located in a metropolis, and our State does not require
the elaborate facilities they demand, but we do need a
larger appropriation than is at present at our disposal, and
we believe that in no other way can the State expend
money for education more advantageously.
The resources of our College do not allow the practi-
cal courses in Chemistry, Botany, and Geology, which we
would like to give, and which the industries of Vermont
suggest. We have not attempted more than we can do
we'll and our instruction lays the broad foundation for
thorough education in these sciences. But we would like
to relate them more definitely to the industries of the
State. We believe it is our duty to serve Vermont accord
ing to our ability by sending out students who have been
trained to further her industrial life. With a few more
teachers in the scientific branches we could turn the atten-
ton of our students more effectively to rural industries
and achieve larger success in keeping them in the State.
In view therefore of the urgent need of further devel-
opment of our work in teacher training, especially in the
practical branches, and in further consideration of the
increasing number of students who can not be asked to
provide in much larger proportion for the cost of training
for leadership, the College appeals for an additional annual
appropriation of $1,000 for TIE worthier discharge of its
duty to the young people of the State.
Such an appropriation would only place our College
on an equality with the most favored sister institution.
Middlebury College is at present receiving 81 800 less from
the State each year than is the University of Vermont,
while our entering class the present year is only IS less.
Our attendance has exactly doubled in the last five years,
a record which is not paralleled by any college in New
England. With such a record should we not receive as
much encouragement and assistance as is given to any
institution in the State?
The fathers long since chartered three educational
institutions of higher learning within our borders. Each
in its way and according to the means ar IFS command has