The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1913-03-22
EDUCATIONAL REVIVAL
Powers and Responsibilities Of We
monts Board of Education Outline


mont's Board of Education Outlined
Lyndonville, March 2O.-In an ad
dress on Vermont Problems" at a
public meeting of the Woman's club
here this evening, President Thomas
of Middlebury College explained the
work of the new board of education.
He said in part:
Vermont is in the midst of an edu-
cational revival All over the State
communities and officials are alert as
never before liz the study of educa-
tional questions and in active effort
for the improvement of all grades of
schools. A sense OF sin is always a
preliminary in any revival and one of
the manifestations of Vermont's
awakening in educational matters is
widespread and earnest dissatis-
faction with certain features of our
school administration and with the re
suits attained. This feeling is right
and healthful AND its further in
crease will be the beginning of better
conditions. Particularly must the
responsibility of the State as whole
for the schools in the small and thin
ly populated towns be acknowledged
and measures for their relief must be
devised 1t is the boy in the little
back district who today is not get
ting a fair chance. His teacher is
the poorest paid and is likely to be
the least trained, his schoolhouse is
the barest and least attractive, his
books are the fewest, his school year
is the shortest Yet that boy be-
comes a citizen of the State, not
merely of the town which schooled
him, and he affects for good or i'll
the name and worth of the State as
much as a boy brought up in Bur
lington or Rutland.
The interest of the whole State in
every child in the State has been
recognized as never before in Yer
mont in the largely increased powers
of the board of education. Some of
our people seem to think that this
board is something new and that its
creation was a piece of personal pol
itics. / do not so understand il. A
State board of education was created
in 1908 and has served continuously
since. That board succeeded the nor
NAL school commissioners, and their
powers were limited largely to con
troll of the normal schools. The new
simply the board of
education"-is constituted somewhat
being composed of five
members instead of three and with
no ex-officio members, but the chief
difference is the. enlargement of its
powers. Where the former board
the normal schools only,
the new board has to do with the
high schools and academies, the
school unions and superintendent.
and through the powers of appointing
the State superintendent and also in
spectors and visitors, with the
schools in every last hamlet in the
State They are authorized to de
termine the classification and stand
ard of high schools and to appoint
a State inspector to see that their
standards are enforced. One of the
most beneficent laws ever put upon
the statute books of Vermont was
the law securing to every qualified
student free tuition in a firstclass
high school. whether his town sup
ports a high school or not But |
fear many of these pupils have been
sadly deceived through the approval
as first class of high schools, which
were not really such. The State has
led no officer to visit the high
schools, and for approval as first
class a school had only TO outline on
paper a four years course and mail
II to Montpelier So the boys and
girls have spent four OF the best
years of their life, travelled long dis
tances, and accepted great sacrifices
from their parents, only to receive
an inferior training, which had never
theless been guaranteed to them as
frst-class by the State of Vermont
Ambition for better schools in com
has been stified, because the
State assured them they had first
class school. when, as a matter of
TACT. they had only a second or third |
class school. The new board of edu- |
cation has power to rectify these |
evils.
Another most benefcent law enact |
I'd few years ago, was that provid- |
ng for unions of towns for the pur.
pose of securing trained supervision |
If all their schools The State bears |
almost the entire expense of these
but hitherto has |
given little direction to their activi-
les. Qualifications for these posi- |
ions have not been adequately deter
mined, and school directors have had
10 guarantee that they were getting
| man adequately trained for the |
work. Through the powers entrust. |
I'd to the board of education, far |
greater returns should be received /
or the money the State is now con |
for this work, and the chill |
iren in the little scattered school |
houses should receive the benefit.
Progressive States like New York |
and Massachusetts have long had |
such boards of education. and their |
citizens would not dream of dispens- |
ing with them. In New York a mag. |
lificent building costing $4,000, 900 is |
devoted entirely to State school |
u-nrl ana