St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1914-12-09
Vermont and the Colleges.


fight over its policy toward the insti-
tutions of higher education must be
evident to anyone at all familiar with
conditions in the state. 1t was made
plainly evident to those members of
the Commercial Club who heard the
stirring appeal of Pres. John M.
Thomas of Middlebury College here
last spring and again last week in
Rutland when he made practically
the same appeal before the mems
club of the Congregational church
in that city.
His appeal is that the state should
give the young men and women of
Vermont an opportunity to get a col
lege education who cannot afford it
in any other way, that their oppor-
tunity should not be shut off when
they pas out from the high school,
that the state appropriations mean
the life of some of the higher insti-
buttons of education and that the
state can surely spare one seventy
fifth of it's income for it's institutions
of higher learning. He makes a
stronger appeal to the sentiment and
patriotism of every Vermonter. But
there are some further facts worthy
of serious consideration by the man
who would see Vermont brought to
its highest development.
During the year 1928 there
were in Vermont colleges 565 Yer
mont students and about sixty of
them had their tuition paid by the
state. There are in Vermont 3d.
900 children of school age and ap-
proximately seventy-seven per cent
never receive any instruction out
side of the elementary schools. About
$4,000 get some instruction in the
secondary schools, or high schools
and academies. The special educa-
tional commission says that the
states first duty is to provide proper
elementary and secondary school ed
ucation for this body of 5000 chill
dren of school age, President
Thomas appeals for the SOS in Yer
mont colleges. There can be no
question that the commission plan
would benefit the larger number and
the state can produce greater re-
suits if it improved the education of
more than ninety-nine per cent of
its boys and girls of school age.
To ask for only one seventy-fifth
of the states income for the higher
institutions sounds like a modest
request but let's look at it further.
Only eight other states in the union
pay a higher rate on their valuation
for school purposes than Vermont,
and Vermont pays over 100000 an
nually toward the support of the
higher institutions of learning. The
educational commission compares
what Vermont is paying it's higher
institutions with other states in this
way. I'm proportion t. it's property
valuation, Vermont is appropriating
to institutions of higher education
II times the appropriation of Maine.
nearly three times the appropriation
of Connecticut, more than four times
the appropriation of New Hampshire,
more than eight times the appro-
piration of Massachusetts, more than
nine times the appropriation of
Rhode Island, more than thirty-four
times the appropriation of New
York" With its high rate of ex-
penditures for educational purposes
and it's abnormally high proportion
to institutions of higher learning the
state may well hesitate to give one
seventy-fifth of it's income to the
three institutions within its border.
Here is another fact, only five 9TH
er states in the union pay their
teachers less than the state of Yer
mont and four of these are below
Mason and Dixon line. The chief
item of expense of the public schools
is the teacher and if Vermont per-
sists in paying such low wages as
this it cannot hope to retain it's best
teachers in its schools. The teach
er too is chief asset of a public
school and the commission is right
in its declaration that the common
schools should be the first interest
of the state in it's educational work
Space will not allow a full pre-
sentation Of the extent to which
Vermont is duplicating its educa-