Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1914-03-06
RURAL EDUCATION.
Prof Raymond Mcfarland Gives
Principal Address.

Proctor union school district was held
Friday, February 81, in the Lothrop
school building in Pittsford. There
was large attendance of teachers and
others interested in educational mat
ters. The towns comprising the union
are Proctor, Pttsford, Chittenden and
Rutland town. The morning session
opened with an inspection of school
work and both forenoon and afternoon
sessions were devoted to general educa
tional topics. The principal address of
the conference was given by Prof. Ray
mond Mcfarland of Middlebury college
who spoke on Reorganization of Rural
Education.
Professor Mcfarland spoke in part as
follows:-
Interest centers in the proposed
reorganization of the high schools of
the State into few carefully selected
regional high schools, perhaps Is or 18
for the State, and the reorganization of
the other high schools into junior schools
to carry on the work of the seventh to
the tenth inclusive. This is the pro-
posal of the Carnegie Foundation ex-
perts.
while agreeing in the main with
the findings of these experts respecting
conditions in Vermont and the need of
reorganization of elementary and Sc
condary education / have to confess
that am not convinced that the pro-
posed reorganization of high schools is
at all feasible in our State. At the
request of Middlebury college | spent
the first half of the school year in 1911-12
in visiting the secondary schools of
Vermont.
my own recommendation was that
while many of the smaller high schools
are sadly in need of better teachers,
enriched curriculum, and more adequate
equipment, they should be promoted
into conditions of greater efficiency by
State aid, if necessary, instead of being
denoted into restricted usefulness
which would result in many cases if the
recommendation of the Foundation are
carried out.
"In my judgment, the effect of adopt
ing the recommendation of the report
would be to aggravate instead of solve
the rural problem of Vermont.
"What we need most in our State is
community units made efficient to the
highest possible degree. These units
should be the town, not the county seat,
or the regional center of education.
: Let Morrisville, for example, be the
only town in Lamoille county to have a
full and complete high school and what
would follow?
"There would be an abandonment of
, the rural communities in other parts of
the county, an influx of people to the
center for the better education of their
children as we'll as for their own social
enjoyment, and depreciation of farm
property in all the outlying districts.
Or considered from the practical point
of view can anyone imagine the acad-
emies at Fairfax and Bakersfield and
the high schools at Swanton. Enosburg
Falls, Richford and Franklin restricting
the high school curriculum and sending
their pupils to St. Adams to receive
the education of the last two years?
Such feat is a physical impossibility
in Vermont, however successful it may
be in other states.
"Centralizing school energies in a
! community itself is to be desired; for a
county unit it is different proposition,
/ especially in Vermont. Many pupils
e will not make the effort to complete
2 their high school education if COM
PEELED to leave home in order to do so.
: Suppose, for example, that Rutland
became the regional center for the
northern part of this county. Do you
! imagine for moment that the juniors
and seniors in attendance at the high
schools in Proctor, Pittsford and Bran
o don would complete their education in
the larger school at Rutland?
Education today is for the masses
. not the few. 1t would be far better
. in my judgment, that IL seniors be
u graduated from each of these high
schools than that the education of say
,, 10 of them cease with the sophomore
year and only two continue through the
regional high school.
I Neither is it an inviting proposition
i for parents to send the adolescent boy
S and girl away from their homes to liv'
I in strange home, or at a boarding
q house in order to complete their educa
+ ton. Preferable to receiving no educa
e ton, probably, but not at all so com
!. mendable as providing school in thei
J. own CONN unity where the children cal
G live OF homo