The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1913-07-11
RURAL SCHOOLS POOR
Best Teachers Ought to Be Hired
For Back Towns.

For Back Towns.
Middlebury, July 9.--In an address
before the rural life conference to-
day on Rural School Improvement"
President John NJ Thomas of Mid
.dlebury College spoke in part as fol-
lows:
There are two. reasons why we
must have good rural schools First,
to make life on the farm desirable,
or even tolerable. People Will not
move into neighborhoodJ where
there are not good schools, and even
families attached by long residence
and deep sentiment to a certain To-
cality will not remain there perman-
emily when the schools are bad
Secondly, we must have good rural
schools to keep up the rural popu-
lation. The country is not going to
be repfenshed from the city, or
even from the villages, to any con-
siderable extent for some years to
come. The small towns must re-
plenish themselves. They cannot do
this without good educational facili.
ties
What makes a good rural school?
First, a good teacher, thoroughly at
home in the common branches, with
sufficient additional knowledge to IL
lustrate and vitalize every subject of
instruction. She must have some
ideas of school management and
know how to grade her pupils and
distribute her time justly among
them. 1t takes both natural ability
and good training to make an effici-
ent teacher for without training
even the most gifted require years
to learn the best methods.
For good rural school there
must be suitable building we'll
kept up. Many of our Vermont
schoolhouses were built 80 or 40
years ago, when the population was
larger. and have been allowed to
get out of repair. The commune
ties would put them in good order
| If their attention were called to the
need Our Vermont folks believe in
good educational advantages, and
the trouble Is in carelessness, rather
than in wilful devotion to bad prac-
| tees
Many rural teacher does not
have the proper tools of the profess
sion. There is many child in Yer
mont who has never seen a globe
| and has little idea of the real rela-
| ton of the countries and continents
to each other.
Efficient supervision must be had
| II our schools are to continue eff
clent year after year. Supervision
| should be compulsory for the entire
State and there should be more free
dom in arrangement of supervis-
| ion union.
THE smaller the towns the poorer
| its schools are apt to be, but we
really need the best schools in the
| smallest and most remote places.
There the school is likely to be the
only center of life and leading in the
whole community. Other institu-
tons, which furnish great help in
| larger places, are there wanting,
| and the school house is the only
representative OF the uplifting and
stimulating life of the outside world.
| But just to these places we send the
| teachers of smallest training and
least experience. We want a Massa-
| chusetts or New York normal gradu.
ate for Montpelier or Rutland, but
for a Vermont mountain town one
year with one teacher in the high
| school is enough.
This is the plan we are heralding
as the solution of the rural school
problem in Vermont. | claim that
the best are none too good for our
Vermont boys and girls. Let us give
them what is right, what they ought
to have, what we want our own chill.
dren TO have, and not what is easy
and cheap"