The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1914-03-09
REARING sTAv-AT-HoMEs
Boston Herald Doubts Whether Yer
mont Wishes to Do It

mont Wishes to Do It
A year ago the Legislature of YER
mont babe the governor appoint a
commission to survey the education
al system of the state. Without de-
lay this commission asked the Carne-
gle Foundation to make the desired
study and offer plans for lettering
the schools. The foundation has just
issued its report--a well knit docu-
ment of more than 200 large pages.
While the report abounds in coun-
sells of perfection, even on affairs so
hopeless as the wall decorations in
college students rooms, ii particular
ly urges three sharp changes; in the
first place, a revised course of study
in the grades and high schools; next,
a centered administration for all the
schools as parts of a single system:
then full freedom of school and col
lege from political ENHANCEMENT;
training teachers for the elementary
schools
These general advices are selfap-
proving. And most of the narrower
recommendations they ground will
find but few opponents. Vermont for
ba hoc 20 a bav. In.
making small towns and even their
districts the sovereign units OF school
administration; in substituting rival
colleges with yearly grants, compe-
titively leased for. in maintaining
normal schools work Moreover, like
Maine and New Hampshire, Vermont
has come to see that education as
now directed favors the migration of
her ADLER sons and daughters to other
states. And so it will doubtless hear
gladly the foundations advice to weld
the system under one strong commits
sioner aided by skilled Supervisors;
to givesthe course of study<inN the low
err schools a new stress on farming;
to drop the normal schools at Castle
ton and Johnson, replacing them with
one good training school; TO cut off,
as soon as permissible, all state aid
to the University of Vermont, Middle
bury college and Norwich university.
But these judicious counsels are
not the whole story However at the
first look the state may like the re-
port. every vermon.er who believes
in education as the door of opportu-
nifty should ponder with care and on
ly the foundations well defined con-
illusions but still more its vague and
undiscussed assumptions. Here and
there the report takes for granted
what every old-school New Englander
condemns at sight. The most loyal
Vermonter from Pownal to Canaan
would never dream of saving in cold
blood. keep the boys and girls in the
state by schooling them only for the
cow-barn and the lumber camp. Yet
the foundation says the same thing in
a softer wording ii advises the Yer
monters to educate the sons and
daughters of Vermont for service in
Vermont" Those who know the
Green Mountain state know what
that service would mean. With no
larger cities. with a tosal population
less than that of Cincinnati with re-
sources almost wholly in pastures
and meadow, fores. and quarry, Yer
mont has little need for lawyers and
classics, little scope for bankers of
captains of industry; for its own serv
ice it needs sheep raisers and dairy
men, foresters and farmers.
If Vermont should adopt all the
foundations views and advices, if for
instance it should start the ordinary
high school course down at the sew
enth grade and stop it two years
short of readiness for college, the am
bilious boy who wants an education
no. for the walls of an upland valley
but for the whole worlds work, who
wants training for the widest serv-
ice to his kind would better choose
his birthplace in state that still.
aims it's, public education UPWARD
MI -, IN -. Il s.. u -.